


The Courage of Your Convictions

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blow Jobs, Emotional Abuse, Grey Side of the Force - Freeform, Inappropriate Use of the Force, M/M, Phasma and Hux are friends, Physical Abuse, Praise Kink, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rimming, Size Kink, Switching, detailed warnings for each chapter in notes, doing good things for bad reasons, drinking about problems, except for Kylo, mentions of interrogation techniques, no one is the villain of their own story, stimulant abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 66,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26238034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: When Hux learns of a new way to manipulate Kylo Ren, he's all for it. He thinks he can get Kylo to stop throwing destructive tantrums and maybe even make him a decent co-commander. Hux never expects his schemes to backfire on him, lead him to some serious questions about his own place in the galaxy, and put both their lives at risk.Part one is complete and is pretty well stand-alonePart two on hiatus until my Kylux BB is drafted.
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Phasma, Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 104
Kudos: 330





	1. Trauma Unrelated to Battle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pangaea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangaea/gifts).



> I don’t even go here! (Incidentally, the working title of this fic.) Blame Pangeastarseed who introduced me to Kylux, expounded on its virtues, and plied me with fic and art until I was hooked. This is for them, in honour of our finally meeting irl.
> 
> I play fast and loose with the extended canon, incorporating some elements and ignoring others (and completely unaware of a lot of stuff, I imagine). If SW can retcon the number of kids Han and Leia had, I can do what the hell I want. This fic is not compliant with anything that happens in tRoS. I hadn't seen it when I started, and I don't care for it now.
> 
>  **About the content warnings:**  
>  This story involves themes of trauma and mentions rape several times. Several characters use dismissive, casual, or graphic language around the subject. Their views are not my views. No rape takes place during this story. There is way less discussion of sexual assault than this is making it seem, but I don’t want anyone to be surprised or hurt by what I have written.
> 
> There are detailed content warnings in the end notes of each chapter regarding any issues of sexual violence, or adjacent triggers. (The regular notes will be after the content warnings because y’all know how I love my chapter notes.) Those warnings will therefore contain spoilers for what happens in that chapter.
> 
> This story also includes mentions of physical, mental, and emotional abuse. Most of it is about how Snoke has groomed Kylo into what he is and is a large part of how I have characterized Kylo. Is Kylo a bad person who works with space Nazis? Yes. Has Snoke spent his entire life traumatizing him? Also yes. Both these things can be true.

Gallingly, Phasma is the one who figures it out.

Hux would be more annoyed about that, but then, Phasma has some horrible fetish for people as individuals; she likes to know what makes them tick. Hux understands motivators; he knows that a need for something creates drive. So too does desire. Those wants and needs also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited. 

Hux hasn't discovered the source of Kylo Ren’s infantile temper tantrums, because he can't figure out what it is that Kylo is seeking. His basic needs are taken care of. He doesn't care about money in the way that someone who doesn't have to worry about poverty doesn't care about money. He has position and power. As far as Hux can tell, Kylo’s lack of self-control is simply because he has a rotten temper and the emotional maturity of a tadpole. It isn't a satisfying answer, but Hux assumes it's all he will ever get.

Then Phasma figures it out. 

Hux and Phasma are off-duty and drinking in her quarters. They stick to her rooms because Hux likes to be able to leave whenever he wants, instead of having to coax someone out of his own space when he’s reached his limit on being social. That, and she thinks the fact that he has a loth-cat is a sybarite excess the likes of which hasn’t been seen in their lifetimes and is always frowning disapprovingly at Millicent and sneezing. 

She’s one of the few people he can socialize with, within the realms of propriety, who he trusts not to poison him. In an ideal world, the upper echelons of the First Order would not be a viper pit of scheming and power-hungry maneuvering. Everyone would know their place and serve it well. It is not an ideal world.

Most of the ex-Imperials want him dead; for how far he's come, for killing his father (not that they can prove it), and for their own advancement. The older First Order commanders who didn't come from the fallen empire hate him for being younger and smarter than they are. They envy him because he, and not they, has Snoke's ear and the honour of housing his apprentice. More fool them.

For Hux’s own part, there are at least dozen senior officers across the fleet he'd like to murder. The Order would be better for it. He has solid plans in place for two of them and he’d do more if he thought he could get away with it.

Phasma is not one of those he would get rid of. She's ruthless and disciplined. She's straightforward. If she has something to say, she'll say it, and she is content with her position. Hux trusts that Phasma won't stab him in the back, or the front. He can count on one hand the number of friends he’s had in his life, and while he's not sure what he has with Phasma constitutes friendship, there’s respect between them, and that's a precious commodity in their line of work.

It was her turn to pick the beverage of the evening, and he should have known she was going to drop some awful news on him. Instead of making him suffer through the disgusting, black as mud beer that she likes, she’s got him drunk on his favourite brandy from Hosnian Prime.

Hux undoes exactly one button on his collar, stretches out his legs, and sighs. Phasma seems to take as a sign he’s reached some critical stage of relaxation. The better to ruin it.

“Armitage,” she says, because she also has some horrible fetish for names and it makes her happy to use his when they're off-duty. Happy captain, happy life? Isn't that how the saying goes?

“No,” Hux says. “No. Whatever it is, no. I’ve had a very irritating day. Snoke is angry about the delays on Starkiller, which is what happens during massive engineering projects. And he would know that if he wasn’t more concerned with Force-this and Force-that. Magic isn't going to make critical shipments arrive faster. Worse, Kylo’s back from whatever useless quest he was on and now everyone’s jumpy and paranoid and making stupid mistakes. And he destroyed a cleaning droid that was inexplicably important to morale and the FN-2100s, are all sulking—”

Phasma looks uncharacteristically misty. “Stabby,” she says with some feeling. She salutes the air and drinks.

“What.”

“Stabby the cleaning droid. They’re nearly universal. Wherever humans go, someone straps a knife to a cleaning droid and sets it loose. He probably got Ren in the ankle.” Now she sounds proud of the illogical thing. “I’ll let the company have a memorial. It'll cheer them up.”

“A memorial,” Hux says. “For a cleaning droid.”

She looks at him seriously and he can’t tell if she’s making fun of him or not when she says, “For a fallen comrade. But that’s what I wanted to tell you about.”

Hux throws his drink back and holds out his empty cup for her to refill. “Go ahead then,” he says. “Make it worse.”

“I had a trooper executed. I sent you a memo but it's probably buried. Low priority."

That’s not what he was expecting. Phasma likes her troopers. She remembers the nicknames they aren't supposed to have, and is always finding excuses to reward the smallest success. She almost never favours execution over reconditioning.

Phasma smiles thinly. “To cut a long story short—”

“Please do."

“FN-1081 assaulted a member of his own squad. I had him punished, sent for reconditioning, and reorganized several units so he would no longer serve with the teammate he abused. Unfortunately, following the incident, FN-1072 began experiencing emotional outbursts. Her previously exemplary command of herself was shattered. She became quick to anger, prone to fits of rage.

"She eventually required reconditioning herself, and yet the problems persisted. So, I let her kill FN-1081. She is the more valuable stormtrooper and, additionally, his new company would not accept him into their ranks. I’m hoping this solves the problem.”

“It sounds like you have it well in hand," Hux says, not sure what any of it has to do with him.

“Before I made any decisions regarding the matter, I sent a message to the conditioners.”

Hux does not care for the group of scientists that dissect every thought a human being could possibly have and work out ways to rearrange things to their purpose. Hux understands propaganda and spin; he’s written plenty of it. But the stormtrooper program is…well, it’s brainwashing and he's not as fond of it as he purports to be. He doesn’t want a populace of troopers. He’s trying to take over the entire galaxy. People need the space to have their own thoughts, within a prescribed limit of course, but an empire cannot be built on troopers alone.

He suspects that the stormtrooper programming leaves the Order open to infiltration and failure in the event of that programming’s breakdown. There have been cases of desertion. His own father came up with the program, and Hux dutifully refined it, but Brendol Hux was wrong about a lot of things. A redesign of the stormtrooper program is one of Hux's many side projects.

“They sent me some information about trauma unrelated to battle.” Phasma stares into the depths of her cup and shrugs her broad shoulders. “Its effects.”

Hux knows a little about what ‘trauma unrelated to battle’ does to someone. It’s never made him anything but smarter, faster, and tougher. “I’m not traumatized,” he says, irritated. "If that's where you're going with this."

“Not you, you egocentric boob,” Phasma says. “Ren.”

“What?” Hux says. “Give me that bottle, you’re drunk. Which one? They’re all Rens."

“Which one? Really? You’re dense as a neutron star. The only one of the creepy bunch who lives here full-time, and has violent outbursts over minor inconveniences and slights.”

Hux tips his head back so he’s looking at the ceiling and not at Phasma, and heaves a massive, irritated sigh. “You think someone abused Kylo Ren, who, might I remind you, can throw a man across the room without touching him, and is probably a horror under that mask.”

“Attractiveness has nothing to do with assault,” Phasma says, like she’s quoting. “And no, I’m not suggesting someone cornered him in a ‘fresher and stuck their cock in him. It doesn't have to have been a rape, lots of things cause trauma. I'm saying that Ren’s unstable because someone made him that way, and no one’s given him the all-clear to blow that being’s head off with a blaster. If you get rid of the cause, maybe he’ll stop killing innocent troopers.”

Hux scrubs his face with his hands and lifts his head so he can see her again. She looks deadly serious. “Assuming your insane idea has any merit—and I’m not agreeing that it does—what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Tell the Supreme Leader,” Phasma says promptly. “Ren’s wound tighter than a Bariliaan honthor, maybe he repressed the trauma. Maybe the Supreme Leader can’t see it. Ren’s his apprentice, or however that Sith shit works. Wouldn’t he want to fix Ren? Make him stronger?”

The idea of informing Snoke that someone has hurt, or is hurting, his favourite Knight is not an appealing one. The Supreme Leader does not tolerate weakness and he will see any psychic injury as weakness. Even if it's something that happened to Kylo as a child—a thought that turns even Hux's stomach—Hux would lay even odds on Snoke punishing Hux himself, just for being the bearer of bad news.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Hux says, rather than admitting he’d rather jump into a sarlacc’s mouth than have a discussion with Snoke about Kylo Ren’s delicate feelings.

Mercifully, Phasma lets the subject drop. They finish off the bottle of brandy, play a few hands of Juloa War, and then Hux refastens his collar, and walks with careful dignity to his own quarters.

There, he performs his nightly ablutions and tucks himself into bed, Millicent a warm lump on his feet.

Hux is drunk and normally that would counter the stims he abuses and knock him right out, but he's stuck on the idea that Kylo Ren can be hurt. Perhaps there is a creature of flesh and blood under the mask. Something that can be wounded badly enough to cause significant mental distress.

Hux's datapad beeps. When he pulls up the message, he sees Phasma has forwarded him the literature the conditioners sent her. Curious, despite himself, Hux opens up the document and educates himself on trauma unrelated to battle.

By the time he finally passes out, Hux has the feeling that Phasma is right.

Hux hasn't had much time to consider his options when Kylo corners him in his office. 

Kylo often smells vaguely rank and animal; old sweat and older blood, of wool and leather uncared for. Today is no exception. There's an underlying hint of ozone that Hux assumes must be from the lightsaber, or just from the Force itself. 

It makes him furious; they live with nothing but recirculating air. It's disgusting and disrespectful. In a small room, it's all he can think about.

He hates that, despite himself, he's a little bit afraid of Kylo Ren.

“Training room eight is filled with construction equipment,” Kylo says, and Hux relaxes. Just the usual sort of tantrum then. Not the day Kylo murders him on Snoke's whim, or because other officers have been conspiring.

“Yes,” Hux says, and looks back down at the progress reports on Starkiller he'd been analysing.

“Clear it," Kylo says.

“The room is damaged and requires repairs,” Hux says. “As well you should know, since you damaged it.”

“I don't care about the walls,” Kylo says, the anger in his voice audible even through the distortion of his mask’s vocoder.

“It's under reconstruction,” Hux says mildly, because he knows that annoys Kylo the most. His fear makes him petty, and Hux hates that too. "Use one of the other training rooms.”

He’s considering his next well-placed barb when he remembers what Phasma told him. If she’s right, and Kylo is lashing out because of some unknown trauma, and not because he's got the temperament of a rabid wookiee, then Hux can use that to outmaneuver him. He can gain an advantage in their inevitably doomed power struggle.

Hux’s current method of handling Kylo is to needle him as much as possible and stop just short of total breakdown. He's learned to intuit the exact moment before Kylo would try to hurt him and then let the argument go, denying Kylo the satisfaction. He figures if Kylo is going to behave like an ill-mannered beast, he might as well get some entertainment out of it.

Now, Hux considers he might be better served by a new approach to the situation.

He lifts his head to give Kylo his full attention. “Is there a reason you prefer that particular room?”

Kylo hesitates. "None of your concern," he says suspiciously.

"I'm not trying to pry," Hux says, even though he is. "It would simply let me offer a viable solution."

When Kylo hesitates again, Hux knows he has him. “The others are too near trooper barracks,” Kylo says. 

Hux knows what it’s like when Kylo is trying to dig around in his mind. It’s a sharp pain, the sick feeling of someone sticking their fingers into an open wound. He wonders if it feels as alien and wretched from the other end. But he also has no idea how much Kylo picks up without trying. It’s very possible that he can’t turn it off, and can hear anything people are broadcasting. If Hux could read minds, he might never get anything productive done either. 

“I see,” Hux says. “In that case I would be happy to work with your needs. I can let you know when the barracks are empty, if that would be helpful.”

The rage drains out of Kylo like someone stuck a pin in him. “Oh,” he says. “Yes.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Hux says, as though that was any kind of thanks. “I’ll forward you the schedule now.”

Kylo lurks for another moment or two before he turns on his heel and leaves.

Despite the smell of blood and sweat lingering in the space, Hux smiles down at his console. Round one to him. 

He’s not the youngest general in the Order for nothing. Hux is a master of strategy. He’s been given a passcode to Kylo Ren, and he fully intends to use it. This should be easy.

Hux quickly discovers that Kylo has several weaknesses that are pathetically easy to exploit.

Firstly, he craves attention but only on his own terms. Hux is used to that sort of behaviour; he lives with a cat. 

Hux makes sure to put down whatever he’s doing when Kylo demands his attention, no matter where he is or what he's in the middle of, and listens to whatever nonsense Kylo has to say. The result is that Kylo stops bothering him just to distract and annoy him, and starts coming to him with relevant and useful information. He doesn't do it at opportune times, and he often drags the stench of death with him, but his interruptions begin to have a point. Then, after he’s interrupted whatever Hux is doing, he tends to stick around. Whether on the bridge, or during Hux’s office hours, or rest cycle, Kylo just...stays. 

This leads Hux to the second weakness: Kylo Ren is lonely. He must be, if he’s resorting to Hux’s company. But then, Hux isn’t overtly afraid of him and they’re of similar status on the ship, so maybe it’s not completely idiotic. 

What is idiotic, is that Kylo is lonely to start with. There are a thousand million things to be done and not enough hours in which to do them. If there’s one thing that Hux has learned in his life, it’s that there is no time to be lonely. The desire for companionship, for some Republican notion of love and heartfelt bosom friendship, is nonsense. Look at what all that did to the galaxy.

Thirdly, Hux discovers that Kylo has an incredible weakness for praise. 

Hux has Kylo watched. It’s not hard to do, there are a finite number of places he can go on a spaceship. He takes note of anything Kylo does that has a net positive gain and then praises Kylo for it.

“Excellent work, Master Ren,” Hux says each time, allowing himself to be effusive, not even being sarcastic about the title. “You’ve done well.”

Kylo has excellent posture, he doesn't slouch or hunch, but he still seems to straighten up when Hux praises him. He doesn’t even ask how Hux knows what he’s been up to, doesn’t accuse Hux of prying into his business (which he did), or spying on him (which he is), or get shirty about their relative positions in the First Order hierarchy and if Hux has any standing to be commenting on his job performance (he does not). Instead, he starts bringing the information to Hux himself and Hux no longer has to have him watched. 

Hux has been hoping for, if not pleasant interactions, then at least some peace and quiet. He gets more than he’d ever dared dream of.

Kylo’s outbursts decrease in violence. He destroys three training dummies, but no droids or troopers. A few walls get damaged but no important equipment.

Hux ignores his tantrums and sulks. When Kylo returns to him with another piece of good news, Hux praises him again, like Kylo is his to command. Hux never suggests taking these scraps to the Supreme Leader. It’s all so far below the attention of the Supreme Leader, Snoke would never care. But Hux does. Small things, the little details, all of it is crucial to the smooth operation of _Finalizer_ , the construction of Starkiller, and the entire First Order.

Hux thought he had tried everything with Kylo to make him listen, but he never thought to ignore the outbursts and reward good behaviour. Like training a beast, Hux thinks. The carrot, not the stick.

A cup of caf appears at Hux’s elbow when he’s about three seconds from face-planting, exhausted, onto his desk during critical campaign meetings. 

After the meeting, Lieutenant Loya Jenji, Hux’s secretary, shrugs. “Master Ren said you needed it.”

Then a visiting general starts giving Hux a migraine the likes of which he’s never felt before, and Kylo barges in with his usual dramatic flair and lurks ominously, breathing like a malfunctioning exhaust port and being massively off-putting, until the general retires for the night, obviously alarmed.

"Your headache is giving me a headache," Kylo says, and leaves.

Then there’s the day Hux overhears Kylo arguing with one of the TIE-Fighter mechanics. Only, when he goes to intervene before Kylo can damage the entire hanger when he inevitably loses his temper, he realizes they’re going back and forth on the new inertial dampener couplings that have been giving some of the pilots trouble. Kylo isn't berating the woman over the fault, he’s making a case for a workaround and the mechanic has a different workaround. They seem to be having a good time arguing about it.

Hux adds that to his list of facts about Kylo: he's bored.

Whatever Snoke has him doing, it's not occupying enough of his time. He's like an under-stimulated pet chewing on the furniture.

In theory, they're co-commanders but Hux has been handling a hundred percent of the work. Not that he really wants to delegate to Kylo; he enjoys having a ship that actually functions. But short of finding someone for Kylo to have playdates with, he's a little stumped as to how to occupy his co-commander.

"Jenji," he says. "Bring me a list of tasks that require my attention but are low priority and not vital to the security or safety of this ship."

A few hours later there is an optimized list on his datapad. Hux leaves it until he's on his rest cycle. He takes a sonic, then gets comfortable in his robe, feet up on the couch, and lights a cigarra. It's a bad habit but he smokes when he needs to stop being analytical and loosen up. He came up with the Starkiller after two cigarras and a rather fantastic fuck. 

Now he smokes, pets Millicent, and reviews the ops list.

His door opens without so much as a knock or a chime to let him know someone is there and Hux startles up to his feet, reaching for the blaster he keeps attached to the underside of his desk. Millicent yowls and streaks into his bedroom.

Hux lowers the blaster when he sees it’s just Kylo.

"Were you raised on Hoth?" Hux demands, reholstering the blaster. "Have you never heard of knocking?"

"I sent you a message, you didn't reply," Kylo says.

"And did you stop to consider that I might be sleeping? Or in the sonic? I'm not at your beck and call."

Kylo’s helmet cocks to the side. "What are you wearing?"

"What am I… What?!" Hux says. "Are you—" He cuts himself off before he can call Kylo any number of names. "Come in if you're going to," he says, and sinks back onto the couch.

Kylo shuts the door but otherwise stands there like a lump. He's not wearing his cape and smells as though he's bathed recently. At least Hux doesn't have to chastise him for disrespecting his personal quarters.

"Are you smoking?" Kylo asks.

Hux looks at the cigarra and then back at Kylo, one eyebrow arched. He lets the moment drag out until it’s an insult. "What was it you wanted?" Hux says.

Kylo doesn’t rise to the bait. "The Knights and I are being called away. I will be gone for a ten-day, at most."

"Good to know," Hux says. "But I'm not sure that I needed to know it right this minute."

Despite Hux’s lack of reception, Kylo continues to just stand there. Hux sighs.

"Here," Hux says, holding out the datapad. "Is there anything that looks interesting?"

"Interesting how?" Kylo takes the pad, and his helmet turns down towards it. Hux has no idea what his field of vision is like in that thing, but Kylo seems to be reading, and not staring uselessly at nothing.

Hux takes a drag and blows out smoke; the whir of the air scrubbers is loud when it kicks on. "To do, when you get back. I can function indefinitely on three hours of sleep with stims, five hours of sleep without, but I prefer six. We are co-commanders, are we not?"

"You said I was 'unsuitable, in the way, and an impediment to the running of the _Finalizer_.'"

Hux doesn't remember saying those exact words, but it does sound like him. "Kylo, when we met, you'd only ever commanded a strike team. Expecting someone with your background to be able to manage the day to day of keeping a battle cruiser functioning, or overseeing a construction project, or managing troops… of course you couldn't do it. Most people aren't good at more than one of those things, if they're even good at any of them. And that's after extensive training and in-field experience."

"You are," Kylo says, a little sulkily.

"I am trained for it. Secondly, I'm incredibly smart," Hux says. "That's not a boast, by the way, it’s a provable fact."

Kylo's vocoder spits out an incomprehensible sound. "Really?" he says. "Brendol Hux didn't put his son into a position of power?"

"I'm a bastard, born of a servant he threw away as soon as I was weaned. And yet, I graduated top of the Academy. I commanded a strike team of my own, then a batallion, then when I was a lieutenant, my general was killed in battle and I brought our ship to victory. I'm a tactical genius. I earned my title, Jedi Killer. Same as you."

Kylo doesn’t say anything for several moments and then, with surprising intuition: "Did your commanding officer really die in the battle?"

"That's what the report said."

"So much for loyalty," Kylo says.

"My loyalty is to the First Order, not to individuals. The General was not a tactical genius and he wouldn't listen," Hux says dismissively. "We all would have died under his command and our defeat would have meant disaster for the entire operation. So, is there anything on that list you would be interested in taking on?"

"You trust me to do this?" Kylo says.

"I trust you to one-up me. Go ahead, do your worst." It's not the nicest thing Hux could have said, but nevertheless, he could swear Kylo is pleased.

"You’ve been acting strangely,” Phasma tells Hux while she’s spotting him in the gym. 

Hux lets her set his training regimen because neither of them have any patience for weak-bodied, battle-unready senior officers. Her efforts haven't made him as strong as she is, but she said he'd never bulk up with his frame and his stimulant abuse. At least this way he's faster and stronger than he looks.

“I have not,” Hux says, arms shaking as he finishes his last rep.

Phasma helps him settle the weight bar into the cradle. “I’ve been reliably informed that you’ve been pleasant. To Ren.”

He hides a scowl by wiping his sweaty face with a towel. “And his attitude has improved,” he says. “Or hadn’t you noticed.”

“You believe me,” she says.

“Kylo is very damaged,” Hux agrees. “I thought perhaps a new approach would yield more positive results. I was right.”

Phasma quirks an eyebrow at him. “Really?” she says. “You think you can make him stop disrupting the Order through sweet words and kindness? I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Hux is startled to realize that he didn’t think he had it in him either. He’s never had a reason to be kind. Kindness is weakness. Weakness is stamped out. But every word of praise he doles out is getting him what he wants. Maybe it’s not kind, if it’s for selfish reasons.

Hux doesn’t feel like explaining himself to Phasma. “I’m training him like an animal,” he says. “Don’t make too much out of it.”

“He thinks you’re friends,” Phasma drawls out. “He thinks you’re nice.”

“You shut your mouth,” Hux says, aghast. “I am not.”

But, several days later, when Hux is off-duty, there is a knock at the door of his quarters and Kylo is there. 

At least he knocked.

“I thought I could show you my lightsaber,” Kylo says.

For a single bizarre moment, Hux thinks he’s being propositioned. Let a man see you in a robe and next thing you know he's offering to show you his lightsaber.

Then, Kylo takes his lightsaber hilt off his belt, turning it over in his hands. “Lieutenant Mitaka said you like to know about how things are built, and I built it.”

Hux steps aside so Kylo can come in. He has wanted to examine one, but figured there wasn’t a snowball’s chance on Jakku that he’d ever get to examine a lightsaber up close.

“I'm sure it's very hard to do,” Hux says, making a mental note to interrogate Mitaka later about what the hell kind of conversations he’s been having with Kylo. He’s shocked that Kylo knows Mitaka’s rank, never mind his name. “You must be very skilled.”

Kylo makes a strange noise and sits down on Hux’s sofa without being asked. He smells of death again, and Hux realizes it's mostly coming from the cape and cowl. 

Kylo thrusts the ‘saber hilt out to Hux. “Don’t turn it on,” he says.

Hux takes the hilt with great care, aware he’s being handed something that is incredibly precious to Kylo, and not sure why. “How would I even do that? Isn’t it powered by the Force?” Hux says.

"That’s not how the Force works,” Kylo says. “There’s a switch on the side.”

“Oh,” Hux says, feeling stupid. Sure enough, there is a starter. “Well, why not use the Force to turn it on?” he says defensively.

Kylo shrugs. “Then I’d have to spend every fight concentrating on keeping it powered up. A switch makes more sense. This is my second one.” He abruptly turns his head away, like Hux can see his face and he’s trying to hide it.

Hux decides he’s not going to walk into that particular emotional minefield. “Why the crossguard? And the… fuzziness,” he says instead. “Not that I’ve seen a lot of lightsabers, but I know I’ve never heard of one like this.”

Kylo turns back. “It’s powered by kyber, like the Starkiller. I was drawn to a cracked crystal, so I had to put in vents. Otherwise the whole thing would blow up in my hands.

Of course Kylo has a faulty, unstable crystal in his mystical laser sword. He’s cracked, so why shouldn’t the stone be cracked too. Hux wants to shake him and shout, “Don’t you know how transparent you are? Don’t you know how weak you’ve let yourself become?” But that wouldn’t work in Hux’s favour in the long run, no matter how satisfying it would be in the moment.

“Harnessing something unstable is much harder to do than harnessing something stable,” Hux says, hoping he doesn't sound too patronizing. “It’s a testament to your mechanical skills. I had no idea you could build things.”

“I’ve done some ship repair,” Kylo says. “Fixed blasters. Droids. Built one or two speeders from the ground up.”

Hux blinks down at the 'saber hilt. There is no way Kylo learned any of those skills from Snoke. Hux is wildly curious about where someone like Kylo even came from. Every time Hux thinks he’s got Kylo pinned down, he says something that destroys Hux’s big picture. Why shouldn't Kylo be able to build a speeder? For all Hux knows, he’s also a prodigy in Twi'lek dance forms.

Kylo folds his hands neatly in his lap, like a visiting diplomat. “I used to tinker, but it’s a distraction from my training, so I don’t do it anymore.” Despite his words, Hux can hear how much he misses it.

"That’s a shame,” Hux says, forming an idea. “I don’t see why you shouldn't pick it up again.”

He can feel Kylo’s yearning.

"I thought it was the Jedi who didn’t do things for fun.”

If there's one thing Hux has learned about the Knights of Ren, it's that they loathe being called Jedi. He’ll be an Ewok’s uncle if he doesn’t discover Kylo working on some silly little project within the next five-day.

Hux, knowing when to press and when to withdraw, doesn’t push his luck. Instead, he redirects Kylo’s attention to the 'saber hilt and says, “Once they’re built, I suppose anyone could use it?”

“Wouldn’t be much point,” Kylo says. “Not unless you can move fast enough to block blaster fire with it. That’s why Force users are the only ones who bother with them. We can’t get each other with blasters so we have to hack away at each other with swords.”

It never really occurred to Hux that Kylo effectively brings a knife to a gun fight every time he goes into battle. The sheer concentration he must need to fight any one opponent while simultaneously deflecting the shots of a superior weapon from any or all directions is unimaginably staggering. Hux had thought the weapon was a silly affectation, but the amount of discipline that its fighting style would require is impressive. 

Hux considers the whole thing in a different light: what a wonderful crushing effect it would have on enemy morale, to be defeated by a single man with a sword, when you had all manner of weaponry and the advantage of numbers.

It would have a much greater effect if the Knights of Ren left witnesses to carry the story of their abilities.

“No wonder you train so much,” Hux says, passing the lightsaber back to Kylo. “This has been wonderfully educational. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Kylo says politely, and automatically if the way he jerks a little, as though he’s surprised himself, is any indication. He gets up and leaves without saying goodbye but Hux can see that for what it is: a retreat.

Hux sits and stares at the closed door of his quarters, without really looking at it, for some time. There’s the glimmer of an idea starting to form. He hasn’t quite got the shape of it yet, but it will come to him eventually.

“Kylo let me hold his lightsaber,” Hux informs Phasma after a briefing, when the others have all cleared the room. Someone’s got to know his little triumph or he’s going to burst with it.

Phasma makes a startled noise and yanks her helmet off. Her hair is sweaty and stuck to the side of her head, and her eyes are very wide. “You kriffing what?” she says.

Hux twirls a vague finger. “Oh, you know, he showed up at my door late at night and asked if I wanted to hold it.”

“That’s the worst come on I’ve ever heard,” Phasma says. 

“Shockingly, it wasn’t a come on. He handed me his weapon and answered my questions about it.”

Phasma goes pale. Not the reaction he’d been hoping for. “Don’t do it, Armitage,” she says. “I can see you thinking it.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” he lies.

She leans in over the table. “I’m serious. A man cannot serve two masters and Ren already has one. Who, incidentally, is also yours. I get it, Ren's imprinted on you like a baby trooper, but the fun’s over. You can’t have him for whatever nefarious purpose you’ve schemed up.”

“I do not scheme!” Hux says. Also a lie.

“He’s not yours. He’s the Supreme Leader’s karking apprentice and you think you can steal Ren from under his nose without him swatting you like a bug? There are limits to what he will tolerate from you, and outright insubordination seems like it would be well past those limits.”

“I am not _stealing_ him,” Hux protests. “I am refining a valuable resource that has been otherwise squandered.”

“You want to tell the Supreme Leader he’s squandering his own apprentice?” Phasma says, phrasing it back in the worst possible way.

“No,” Hux says tightly. “...Yes.” 

“Armitage,” Phasma says.

He cuts her off, bursting out: “Just imagine what Kylo could do if he wasn’t Kylo. He’s unimaginably powerful. Do you know what I could do with him if he answered to me? We’d have the Resistance crushed by the end of the week. The Republic would be lining up to join us. He can _control minds_. And Snoke has him sitting here, bored to tears, letting some trauma fester into indiscipline. It’s obscene.”

“Building the biggest weapon of mass destruction the galaxy has ever seen isn’t enough for you?” Phasma demands. "You're going to get yourself killed.”

Now that he’s said it, Hux can’t stop thinking about it. This is the idea he’d been trying to catch hold of the night before; If Kylo’s skills were properly utilized, Hux could win the war. It would be easy. Plans and strategies unfold in his mind, a little unrefined, but solid. Workable. If he can get Kylo onside before the Starkiller is completed, he won’t even have to use it. Hux could pacify the galaxy.

Whatever Phasma can see on his face clearly displeases her. She jams her helmet back on. “When you die, when the Supreme Leader executes you for your overreach, I’m going to stand over your corpse and say, ‘I told you so,'" she says and storms out.

Hux stays where he is. He feels absolutely rooted in place with the enormity of the idea. Bigger than anything he’s ever attempted before. More risk, so much more risk. But then he thinks about the way Kylo is so desperate for praise and approval, and the weight of a lightsaber in his hand. He could conquer the galaxy. And he’s going to get there by being nice to Kylo Ren.

They run into some small skirmishes with rebels. _Finalizer_ hosts a few diplomats. Snoke holocalls in to check up on everything. Starkiller progresses apace. Life is orderly and pleasingly according to plan. Except, over the weeks, Kylo seems to think he and Hux have a standing arrangement to socialize. 

Perhaps Phasma is right. Perhaps Kylo thinks they’re friends.

Supposed friends or not, Kylo won't take his gloves off, never mind the mask. Hux hasn’t seen one inch of skin to refute the idea that Kylo is anything other than an ill-tempered droid. It's frustrating. It feels like information that would give Hux another advantage. Probably why Kylo is denying it to him.

Despite that, Kylo's behaviour has continued to improve. Not a single incident report has crossed Hux's desk. Kylo has even taken over several minor ops tasks and performed admirably. Phasma informs Hux that Kylo not only replaced Stabby with what was immediately dubbed Stabby Jr. but reportedly built various other little robots to fight Stabby Jr. and gave them to the FN-2100 company which is now the only one where the troopers aren’t terrified of Kylo.

It's made Hux desperately curious. He doesn't just want to see Kylo without the mask. He also wants to know where he learned to build things, where he came from, and who taught him how to organize formal dinners with diplomats. (His seating chart is diabolical and Hux nearly forgets he hadn't asked Kylo to look at it, never mind rearrange everyone.) But Kylo, as well as being lonely and bored, is intensely private. So Hux keeps his questions to himself and simply thanks his lucky stars that Kylo is finally settling into his life on _Finalizer_. Approximately two years late, but still.

Kylo likes to stop by every few days during Hux's rest cycle for a half-hour or so, but for the first time he knocks on Hux's day off, at the very start of the morning cycle.

"I'm human," Kylo says.

Hux pours himself another cup of caf and touches his hair to settle it. He hadn't got around to putting any pomade in, since he wasn’t expecting company. At least he's in his off-duty regs and not his robe again.

"You were wondering," Kylo says.

Hux scowls at him. "I'd appreciate it if you stayed out of my head."

Kylo's mask turns towards him in a way that seems somehow plaintive. "It's hard to miss when you're thinking about me."

"Exactly how much of my mind can you read?" Hux says.

Kylo shrugs and claims his corner of the sofa. "Not a lot, unless I try. Most people's attention wanders all over, one thing leading to another, it's easy to direct then to what I want to see. You're focused. Compartmentalized. And there's a lot behind mental walls. I didn't know Snoke trained you to do that."

"He didn't," Hux says shortly. His time at the Academy and every second spent in the shadow of his father, taught him how to categorize feelings and experiences, and how to bury them. It's not something he likes to dwell on.

Besides, in Kylo's defense, Hux can hardly claim not to have been wondering. “What do you look like?” he asks, not expecting an answer.

“I’m monstrous under here.” Kylo doesn’t sound like he’s lying, but with the vocoder it’s hard to tell.

Hux sips his caf, pleased to be off the subject of his mental processes and back onto Kylo's need to be as mysterious and dramatic as possible at all times. “Do you need the helmet to survive?” he asks.

“No,” Kylo says at last, grudgingly, perhaps because he can tell that Hux already suspects the answer.

“Being ugly is an odd reason to wear that thing everywhere."

“Maybe I’m famous,” Kylo says.

“Maybe I’m a Hutt,” Hux says.

“Skinniest Hutt I’ve ever seen. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you pad your uniform,” Kylo says, because, whatever he is, at heart he’s an absolute prick.

Hux rakes his hair back again. “Gracile,” he says primly. “It made me a fantastic sniper.”

“You were a sniper?” 

“For a while. I’m slight, I used to be quite flexible, and I'm very patient. It let me get into some interesting nests.”

Kylo leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands hanging loosely. “Will you tell me about it?” he says. “The Academy you went to?”

Hux sighs. “I don’t know what you’re imagining. If you’re picturing some sort of tidy little regiment of boys and girls nicely playing at soldiers, you’ve got the wrong end of the blaster.”

“I thought you liked it,” Kylo says, which goes a long way to reassuring Hux that he hasn’t read his mind very much.

If Kylo wanted to, he could look through Hux’s records and find out whatever he wanted about his time at the Academy. But then, it’s all rather dry. Grades, achievements, locations, and commanding officers. Maybe if Hux offers a little bit of turnabout it will convince Kylo to open up more, make him feel like they’re the sort of people who tell each other things. Maybe it will stop him poking around Hux's mind looking for weaknesses.

“Very well,” Hux says. “I haven’t got anything else planned.” He has. A day off is just a day he doesn’t spend in his office, it doesn’t mean he has free time. But he always has work. Hux sits back in his chair and gets comfortable. “I’m warning you now, it wasn’t some Republican pleasure camp."

The Academy on Arkanis had been a proving ground of personality disorders; psychopaths and sociopaths running amok. Sadists running the show. A nasty, harsh shock of reality. Hux had made it through, despite being small and weak, by nurturing his own nascent personality defects—his compulsive attention to detail, his cruelty and lack of forgiveness, and his knack for hurting people without getting his hands dirty—until they were strengths.

His father thought the only way to victory and glory was the law of nature: only the strong survive.

Hux thought that showed a distinct lack of understanding about how nature actually functioned. Lone canids did not survive, packs did, and they did so by working together, each member knowing their place, and their role. Creativity, ingenuity, and a willingness to debase yourself when necessary were all valuable tools. You didn’t need brute strength to get ahead.

Hux was never popular, but he was willing to cooperate with others to get what he wanted. He formed his own feral band, and they survived. The group was able to work together to bring down larger predators.

Besides, Hux had quickly come to the conclusion that a military operation where everyone was always trying to murder everyone else was lunacy. It’s why the Sith got wiped out. People have to know their place and be secure in it. Excellence should be rewarded and promoted. Success in performing within your role should also be rewarded.

“You believe in a meritocracy?” Kylo says in disbelief as Hux expounds on that theory.

“Of a sorts,” Hux says. “That’s why we do regular personality and skills testing on the troopers. It wouldn’t be for the benefit of the Order if we missed out on someone exceptional. But most people aren’t exceptional. It is in the word, Kylo. Exception.”

“What if…” Kylo’s hands twist together, no longer relaxed. “What if the thing that makes someone exceptional destroys everything around it?”

Hux thinks about the rain on Arkanis, a never ending deluge, and a childhood where he was perpetually soggy. He thinks about his first murder; a fellow cadet who had tormented him relentlessly. It took three weeks for anyone to find the body, and by then it was so bloated and decayed that it took dental records to identify the boy. Hux was eleven years old. 

He does not think about Kylo Ren as a small, angry terror, lashing out with the Force at everything around him. Whoever had him before Snoke turned him into a neurotic, volatile, insecure, mess.

What a waste.

“Mismanagement of personnel is the fault of the superior officer,” Hux says. “If someone isn’t properly trained or otherwise suited to the task they have been asked to perform, then they shouldn’t have been assigned there.”

Kylo’s mask tips down. “What if their destiny—”

Hux laughs involuntarily. 

“Oh,” he says, when Kylo’s head snaps back up. “You’re serious. I know you’re religious, but you can’t actually believe in such a thing as destiny.”

For a second he thinks he’s overstepped and Kylo is going to lose his temper.

“Do you ever stop being an asshole?” Kylo demands, without real rancor. He’s coarse as a pirate sometimes, odd hints of foreign accents creeping into his carefully modulated voice.

Hux smirks at him. “I can’t,” he says. “It was foretold.” He's intensely pleased when Kylo makes a noise that might, almost, be a choked back laugh of his own.

Then Kylo says, “What?” in a strangely soft voice. “What is that?”

Hux turns his head to see Millicent padding through the doorway to his bedroom. After weeks of hiding from Kylo, she has finally emerged to take on the challenger.

“A loth-cat,” Hux says. “Her name is Millicent, and she’s very particular.”

Millicent immediately sets out to prove him a liar by immediately stalking over to Kylo. He reaches out a gloved hand and she sniffs at it for a moment, and then promptly climbs him. Her sharp claws catch and drag at the fabric of Kylo’s tunic, but he accepts it without flinching. She perches atop his shoulder and butts her head against the helmet.

“Congratulations,” Hux says dryly. “Her Majesty has announced you are tolerable enough to receive the Royal Presence.”

“She’s so _small_ ,” Kylo says. “And so sharp.” He looks over at Hux. “And so ginger.”

“Do not,” Hux says, “finish that thought.”

“She’s vibrating,” Kylo says, holding up a hand so she can grab onto a finger and chew on his glove.

“It’s called a purr, and it means she’s happy.” Hux isn’t sure what it means that his traitorous cat likes Kylo. She hates almost everyone. Not even Phasma has gained her approval. But here she is, perched atop Kylo Ren like he’s her personal throne.

And just like that, Kylo is happy again. Because Hux insulted his religion and the idea of destiny, and Millicent decided to put holes in his clothing and shed all over him.

Hux gives up on ever deciphering anyone’s motives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING:  
> Hux and Phasma discuss a male stormtrooper sexually assaulting a female stormtrooper. They recount that the woman experienced symptoms of PTSD and was sent for reconditioning. The woman was later given permission to execute the man who assaulted her. Hux and Phasma then speculate that Kylo might have a history of some kind of trauma, sexual or otherwise. Phasma briefly describes a potential scenario instead of just saying rape.
> 
> It’s indicated that Hux has had several traumas in his past, although there is no mention of what they might be. 
> 
> Hux abuses stimulants. He continues to do so throughout the story. In this chapter there are no descriptions of side-effects other than insomnia. Changes to this plot point will be in later chapter notes as appropriate.
> 
> Hux smokes a cigarra which is space marijuana. Because cigarras are space joints, right? Right.
> 
> NOTES:  
> The correct way to refer to a military vessel is simply by her name, without 'the' in front of it. So _Finalizer_ , instead of the Finalizer. Normally there would be an USS or HMS or something in front of the name, but in SW there is not. This rule does have a lot of exceptions, but that's the standard.
> 
> Ilum is the name of the planet that the Starkiller is built on.
> 
> [This is Millicent.](https://xzombiexkittenx.tumblr.com/post/617474346130276353/dandylion-puff-everyone-draws-general-huxs-cat)
> 
> A Barillian honthor is a thing of my own invention and I imagine it to be a stringed instrument that has to be wound precariously tightly.
> 
> Juloa War is a card game that I made up.
> 
> Star Wars has canonical witches, hence Hux thinking of the Force as witchery (as opposed to “space wizard” which is also a fun way to describe Force-users, but less canon).


	2. Crude Matter

Phasma's asides grow increasingly dire, but Hux is feeling smug about the whole business. An hour or so of socializing isn't much of a trade for bringing Kylo to heel.

One evening, several weeks later, while Hux is answering messages and Kylo is playing with Miilicent with a bizarre feathered toy that Hux suspects Kylo made himself, Kylo says, "Being one with the Force is more than a religion."

"I honestly don't care," Hux says because General Celwick has proffered a truly asinine suggestion regarding gathering intelligence on the rebels and Hux is trying to come up with a reply that isn't just, ‘As per my previous message: no.’ He wants to be as eviscerating as possible so he doesn’t have to ever read such drivel again. He wants his words to flay.

"I wasn't raised with it. Even with my connection to the Force."

"Kylo," Hux says, discarding his draft because it is hard to be appropriately vicious when Kylo is demanding his attention. "If you want to discuss comparative religion then I am not your man."

“I don’t know why you’re so dismissive,” Kylo says. “You’ve seen the power of the dark side.”

“And obviously it’s massively useful,” Hux says, instead of the lengthy diatribe he has on the idiocy of thinking there are only two sides to anything, and the danger of black and white, rigid thinking. “But you can’t run an empire on magic that ninety-nine percent of the galaxy can’t use and doesn’t understand. I’m sure it’s very interesting to people who can feel it, but for everyone else…” He shrugs. “It’s just a neat trick.”

“You know nothing,” Kylo snarls. 

Hux has been so busy congratulating himself on his successes that he failed to remember what the literature said about triggers. Because now they're not debating any more. Whatever set Kylo off, this time he doesn't find Hux's remarks about his faith entertaining. Now, he's furious. 

Millicent, smart little creature, takes off as fast as she can go.

Kylo’s hand clenches into a fist and Hux feels the familiar pressure on his throat. It's not enough to completely cut off his air, but it's a serious threat. 

“Tell me again how you can’t feel the Force,' Kylo says.

Hux holds steady, even though his heart is pounding frantically and there’s fear thundering through his veins. “I feel it," Hux croaks out. "But you’re doing it _to_ me. I can no more understand it, than I understand what it’s like for an anooba to hit something with its tail.”

Kylo’s Force-grip tightens painfully and Hux is gasping, lightheaded and desperate for air. Kylo watches him struggle for one terrible, infinite moment, before he releases Hux. Hux doesn’t do anything as telling as slump in his seat or even touch his neck, but he's having trouble controlling his breathing.

Kylo leans forward, intensely focused on Hux. There's a sharp pain as Kylo tries to get in his head, like having an ice-pick migraine at the same time as a hangover. And all the while he can feel Kylo in his mind like a foreign body under the skin, probing, and searching, wriggling around in ways nature never intended.

Hux stares at his own reflection in Kylo’s mask and thinks about his time as a sniper and the moment before the pull of the trigger. He thinks about being empty of everything, no thoughts, no fear, or worry, or pain. Breathe in. Breathe out. That perfect moment of stillness. He lets it wash through him.

Abruptly, the pain stops, leaving a screaming headache behind it.

“Get out of my quarters,” Hux says, standing up, although he has to steady himself on the desk to do so. "Now."

Kylo does get to his feet, but he steps closer. Hux holds his ground even as his breathing starts to sound as panicked as he feels. He's within striking distance but what difference does striking distance make to a man fast enough to block blaster fire? None of Hux's martial skills would be of any use. Hux hasn't been helpless in a very long time and he doesn't care for the renewed sensation.

Kylo reaches out and Hux can't suppress a flinch. A small noise comes through the vocoder as though Kylo is about to speak, but nothing else is forthcoming.

“Leave,” Hux says icily.

Kylo takes his hand back, and goes.

The second the door closes behind him, Hux collapses into his seat. There’s not enough air in the room. He puts his head between his knees and counts breaths until he’s no longer gasping, but he can’t stop shaking. Hux wants to be angry, but he can’t hold onto it, too shamed by his own fear. He can hear his father’s voice sneering at him. He’s weak; what hubris to think he could put a leash on something like Kylo. Hux is just a cog in the machine. Replaceable. Nothing.

No. That’s not true. He’s the youngest general in the First Order. He’s the architect of the Starkiller. 

Hux clenches his teeth until his jaw aches. He doesn’t know what sound it is he's holding in, but he’s not having it. He grinds his teeth together and breathes.

When he has control of himself again, Hux rises and goes to the refresher so he can splash water on his face. His throat hurts, from Kylo choking him and from whatever humiliating noise he managed to hold in. He stares at his reflection in the mirror and hates the sight of himself. The man who would be king, who could be killed as easy as a thought, as easy as a gesture. He’s allowed himself to get carried away by grandiose delusions. No more.

This whole endeavour was a mistake. If anything, he made things worse. Now when Kylo gets angry it’s going to be _personal_. The experiment is at an end. There is no taming him. There is no exploiting his trauma. He's too unstable.

Hux has value, but it is as a military leader, an engineer, and a strategist. That is where he should be concentrating his efforts. Hux turns away from the mirror and goes back to his datapad. He has work to do.

Hux spends the next two days on Ilum, talking to Starkiller’s onsite engineers, tail between his legs. He can’t hide there forever, and he knows it. He was hoping Kylo would be called away but his luck has never been that good.

When he gets back on board _Finalizer_ , he loads up on stims and works a twenty-hour day until Jenji takes him aside and suggests he might want to sleep. Then he goes to his quarters, downs a pot of caf, and works for another nine hours until he finally has to take a counter to the stims, because the shakes are making it hard to use his datapad, and he thinks he might not be totally coherent. He passes out for eight hours, pops another stim, berates himself at length for sleeping in, and gets back to work.

His crew are professionals; they don’t have anything to say about his erratic behaviour. Hux is the general. He controls the ship. No one should say anything to him.

Phasma is not so easily put off by protocol.

“You look like shit,” she says, cornering him on his way to his next holocall. “You can’t go in like that.”

Hux knows what he looks like. He’s drawn down to the bone, eyes too big and red-rimmed, cheeks hollow. The shirt he wears on Ilum to ward against the cold has a high collar, and he’s got that on underneath his tunic and greatcoat in order to hide the ugly bruising ringing his throat. Bacta would take care of it, but the whole thing was his own fault and it’s a waste of resources. And he can’t bear to go to the med bay and request any, because then at least one other person would know what happened.

“I don’t have time for this,” Hux snaps.

Phasma bodily blocks his way. "General," she says. He hasn't heard that tone in her voice since his father was still alive.

"I'm fine," he says. "Nothing to concern yourself with. I'll adjust the lights before the call."

She isn't happy, but she moves out of his way.

Hux survives the holocall by the skin of his teeth. It’s like the rest of High Command can smell weakness and are just waiting to attack. The whole thing is loathsome and puts Hux in mind of his days at the Academy. He’s grateful when his day is over and he can retire to his quarters, but even then he can’t catch a break. He's scarcely in his rooms for ten minutes before someone requests entry. Hux has the wherewithal to check the camera to see who’s there before opening the door and is glad of it, because pacing back and forth in the hallway is Kylo.

“I’m busy,” Hux says, through the intercom. “Schedule something with Lieutenant Jenji.”

Kylo lingers for a minute or two, and then leaves. 

Hux has only just settled into his reports when the door chimes again. This time it's Phasma. Hux thinks about turning her away as well, but she's more likely to cause problems if he refuses her.

"Very well," Hux says, and lets her in.

"The fuck?" she says, the second the door closes behind her.

"You were right. I overstepped and I won't make that mistake again."

"Snoke?"

Hux turns back to his work. "Kylo. He has a limited appreciation for my wit."

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Phasma agrees and tugs his collar down. He lets her. "You want me to get you some bacta?" she offers.

"It's just bruising," Hux says. "I'd rather not waste valuable resources when we're at war."

“Sure,” she says. “You want me to shove him out an airlock?”

Hux sighs wistfully. “Perhaps later,” he says. “But thank you.” He’s almost certain she would do it, if he asked. He’s not sure why, but he’s not going to look a gift fathier in the mouth. 

Phasma pats him on the shoulder. “Let me know,” she says, “he’s been frightening the troopers again. He could use a good spacing.” She sticks around for a few hands of sakresh and by the time she leaves, Hux is in a much better mood.

The next rest cycle Hux has, Kylo returns.

“I’m busy,” Hux says again. “Schedule something with Lieutenant Jenji.”

This time Kylo forces the door and steps into his quarters. The door slides shut behind him, trapping Hux. His throat is still mottled green and purple from Kylo’s tantrum and it hurts, just a little, to swallow. He is not looking forward to adding another layer of pain over the first. It’s easier to crush a man’s trachea or break his esophagus than most people think, and it only takes twenty seconds to kill someone using a blood choke. Hux highly doubts Kylo is thinking about that when he’s strangling someone. 

The odds of Kylo killing someone accidentally are unacceptably high. The odds of him accidentally killing Hux himself are unacceptably high.

“I was told you are busy indefinitely,” Kylo says, controlled. “When I informed your aide that I am your co-commander, the Master of the Knights of Ren, and the right hand of the Supreme Leader, she pleaded with me not to hurt her. You gave her instructions not to make time for me.”

Hux looks up from his datapad, trying to hold onto some semblance of calm. He is not succeeding. Jenji is one of his most important members of staff and they’ve been working together since he became General. She’s a tiny woman, slender even in comparison to Hux, and only about five Imperial feet tall, including her cap and boots. The thought of Kylo putting a hand on her fills Hux with rage. “Did you hurt her?” 

“Does it matter?”

Hux swallows down his anger. He thinks of glaciers, freezing rain, and the way liquid nitrogen vapourizes, the way it burns skin.

“Yes, Kylo, it matters. She’s good at her job. I want her to keep doing it. You can’t run a galaxy with nothing but knights and generals. You need ground troops, engineers, maintenance staff, aides, accountants, and all manner of people who are the backbone and life blood of this organization. Without them we’re nothing.”

“She’s fine,” Kylo says, and takes a step closer.

Hux doesn’t move away, but only because he’s at his desk and there’s nowhere to go. Jenji isn’t hurt. She’s military, same as the rest of the First Order. Likely she’ll be angry at her capitulation. He makes a mental note: his staff are not to get in Kylo’s way. It’s not worth it. He’ll be sure to let everyone know. Assuming he survives the next few minutes...

Kylo says nothing before he abruptly sits on the couch without being invited to do so. His hands twist in his lap. “I didn’t think you were afraid of me," is what he finally comes out with.

“I’m not,” Hux lies, automatically.

“You are,” Kylo says. His helmet lowers, shoulders hunching. “You weren't, but I’ve ruined it.”

Hux is very rarely speechless but now he finds himself at a loss for words. He has had some bad working relationships, but the waking nightmare of serving alongside Kylo is easily the worst. There wasn't anything to ruin. 

Except, there had been improvement. Changing his tactics had a positive effect. Hux has been protecting his dignity and pride for so long that it’s almost impossible to consider telling the truth. But he’s been trying new things overall, why not here as well? A little honesty might go a long way.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Hux says, choosing his words carefully. “It’s what you can do.”

“It’s the same thing,” Kylo says.

Hux realizes he’s still holding his stylus in a death grip and puts it down on the table. “It really isn’t. You have a rotten temper, no control over it, and you take your moods out on everyone around you. That’s not frightening, it’s irritating. If you tried to throttle me with your hands, I could make you regret it. There’s nothing I can do to counter your witchery.”

“Witchery?”

“Don’t let’s start that argument again. I don’t like things I can’t defend myself against, and Snoke refuses to discipline you. So, no, I have never been and never will be afraid of you. But I can’t say I’m fond of what you can do.”

“You always pushed back,” Kylo says. “You push me, I push you. Even when I used the Force, you found a way to retaliate. Maybe it's not traditional, but it worked. Wasn't it working?”

Hux has never met anyone so out of touch with reality in his entire life. It’s deeply perplexing. “You can’t seriously have thought a relationship built on trying to humiliate and undermine one another was a positive thing.”

Kylo’s head lowers again. “Maybe," he mutters.

Maybe Hux has reached that strange point where one has sat in fear so long that it normalizes and turns to an apathy that might be mistaken for courage. Maybe he just needs more sleep. 

Kark it, Hux thinks, nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

“You’re an idiot,” Hux says.

He stalks over to the couch and shoves Kylo’s shoulder, pushing him back. He puts one booted foot next to Kylo’s thigh and leans in, practically on top of him, holding him in place. Hux doesn’t fool himself thinking he could prevent Kylo from throwing him across the room, but he’s making a point.

“You think, to keep this wonderful relationship going, that I should submit to your bullying without complaint?"

“No!” Kylo says, and tries to sit up. "That's not what I—"

Hux grinds the heel of his hand into what feels like a collarbone and Kylo actually stays put. "I don't care what you meant, or what twisted logic made you think I enjoyed being belittled and threatened. I’m not your master, or your commanding officer, thank the stars, so I don’t have to suffer your presence if I don’t want to. And I don't make time in my day for someone who thinks choking me is an acceptable way to behave."

“Hux,” Kylo says, and even through the vocoder Hux can hear how tortured his voice is.

“Are you _sorry_?” Hux says, scathing. “Is that what this display is about?”

"Things were going well."

Hux, thinks 'well' might be overselling it. "They were better," he allows. "But you can’t sustain it, and I’m not prepared to risk my life for nothing.”

Kylo’s shoulders tense up. “I knew it,” he says. “We were better. I was going to ask…" He shakes his head a little. “It doesn’t matter, I ruined it.”

He knows he's going to regret it, but Hux has never been one to let well enough alone. "What were you going to ask?"

“I want to have sex with you,” Kylo says wretchedly.

Hux lets go of him and steps back so there’s a modicum of space between them. “I beg your pardon?” In all his machinations, Hux never thought about that as a possibility. Phasma is going to laugh herself sick.

Kylo runs his hands over the smooth curve of his helmet like he’s trying to scrape his fingers through hair. “I said it didn’t matter anymore.”

“No, you said you wanted to fuck me,” Hux says. “Before you lost your temper and threatened my life, you were intending to ask if I wanted to have sex with you.”

He turns away and stares at his desk. He’s spent his evening going over some of the minutiae of constructing the Starkiller. Every screw and washer, every welding torch, every workman’s safety goggles, he has the account of it. The data is there, spread out neatly, but he’s blind to the details. Kylo Ren wants to have sex with him.

“I won’t hurt you again,” Kylo says. “I can control it.” It sounds like Kylo is trying to make some kind of cosmic bargain; if he gets what he wants, he will somehow find the means to gain mastery of himself. Or maybe Hux is reading too much into it.

“You’re going to have to explain this to me,” Hux says. 

Then, before Kylo can even answer, Hux sees the reasons with perfect clarity, like a target coming into focus: Kylo is lonely, bored, and desperate for attention. Almost everyone in the First Order is scared of him and those who aren’t, don’t like him. The Knights of Ren probably count as subordinates, assuming Kylo cares about avoiding coercive positions of power. 

A pity fuck is better than nothing, and nothing is exactly what Kylo has been getting. Hux might be his only option.

Kylo, however, still hasn’t managed to offer any explanation of his own. He finally stands up, a wall of black, radiating shame. “I knew you’d laugh,” he says bitterly.

Hux takes a deep breath. He’s clearly lost his mind because the fact that Kylo has been sitting on his couch and pining isn’t filling him with disgust. He likes the idea. The man who can tear minds apart, one of the most terrifying warriors in the galaxy, has offered Hux a real vulnerability… It’s a shocking amount of power to be handed so suddenly. Hux might already be a little bit hard.

“Out of morbid curiosity,” Hux says, “how were you imagining it would go? Were you planning on taking off your helmet?”

Halfway through turning to leave, Kylo hesitates. “No.”

“Were you going to disrobe?”

"You don’t have to get naked to fuck,” Kylo says.

Hux leans back against the desk in a rather louche manner, crossing his legs at the ankle. “No,” he agrees, “one does not. However, I don’t have contact with sex organs I haven’t seen. It’s not personal, it’s just sensible.”

Kylo isn’t trying to leave any more. He’s fixed in place, his mask turned towards Hux. It’s very possible he’s breathing a bit heavier.

“You don’t want me to look at you,” Hux continues, “I’m not allowed to touch your skin, and therefore whatever you’ve got in your trousers is off-limits. I’m confused as to how you were imagining we would have sex."

Hux can’t read minds, but judging from his silence, Kylo hadn’t actually thought his proposition all the way through. Hux raises his eyebrows pointedly and Kylo, with some reluctance, pulls his gloves off and tucks them in his belt.

His skin is pale. Not as pale as Hux’s, more like he could tan deeply if only he wasn’t living in space. His fingers are long and blunt, the knuckles and tendons standing out in sharp relief. His nails are bitten down to the quick and his hands are scarred over the knuckles like a boxer.

Hux knows that Kylo has big hands. It's just a fact. But he’d never really paid any attention to exactly how big they are. They are...very nice hands.

“I don’t see what you’d get out of this arrangement,” Hux says. “This isn’t some bizarre Force thing where you’re going to drain the life out of me is it?”

Kylo puts his gloves back on, like he’d stripped naked and is now humiliated. “No, I just want to have sex with you.” He sounds sullen and embarrassed.

Hux likes sex. He doesn’t get to have it as often as he would prefer, but when he takes his mandatory shore leave, or he’s on a planet for some tedious meeting or other, he either tries to meet up with someone, or hires a professional. If there’s one thing he’s discovered about himself, it’s that there are a lot of things he enjoys, from the common to the more unusual. And Kylo is certainly more unusual. He has a strong feeling that taking pity on Kylo wouldn’t be without its own rewards.

He’s also pretty sure Kylo is two seconds away from bolting, so he turns away to tidy his datapads, flimsis, and other materials off his desk. “Alright,” he says, “I suppose that’s enough of a plan to be getting on with.”

“What?”

“I said yes.” Desk clear, Hux turns around. “We can have sex. Would you like me to turn the lights off?” 

“Can I see you first?” Kylo says, pulling his gloves off again. Then, “No, that’s not fair. You don’t have to.”

Hux flicks open the fastenings of his tunic without making a production of it. “I’m not sure when you came to the conclusion that I care even remotely about fairness. But I don’t.” He removes his tunic, shirt, and undershirt so Kylo can see him in all his pale, skinny, freckled glory, such as it is. 

"You're lovely," Kylo says, breathless, even through the vocoder, and manages to get coordinated enough to maneuver himself within touching distance. "Thank you," Kylo says, in that stilted way he has.

Hux has been called many things in his life. Lovely is not one of them. "Absolutely not," Hux says. "Lights, ten percent."

It's bright enough to see, but only just, like the deepest twilight. Dark enough to make Kylo’s mask seem less gruesome and off-putting.

Kylo touches his bruised throat first. Very gently, like the apology he’ll never actually offer. Before Hux can make a comment, Kylo moves on to Hux’s chest. His hand is warm, palm and fingers rough with calluses. He ticks one nail against Hux’s ident tags and Hux wonders if Kylo has a set or not. Everyone in the First Order wears them, even though there are rarely bodies recovered from space battles, and Hux hasn’t taken part in ground action in years. He fully expects to die in space and his corpse to float forever in the black. He doesn’t care what happens to his remains; he’ll be dead. Burial is sentimental nonsense. He wonders what happens to Force users when they're inevitably cut down.

“Wait here,” Hux says. 

He goes into the refresher for a quick tidy up, and to retrieve a bottle of lubricant because he’s far too old to tolerate dry handjobs. Hux takes the rest of his clothes off, and comes back out into the main room, naked except for his regulation socks, and decidedly non-regulation robe. He refuses to be embarrassed by his socks. It’s impossible to heat a spaceship the _Finalizer’s_ size and he’s always cold.

Kylo hasn’t moved when Hux returns, but he’s managed to force his sleeves halfway up his forearms before the lack of give in the fabric stopped him. They are very nice forearms.

“Will this do?” Hux says, setting the lubricant down on his desk.

Kylo crowds up behind him, vocoder loud in Hux's ear. One big hand covers his, pressing it to the desk, and the other slides into the front of Hux’s robe. “Yeah,” he says, like an outer rim smuggler, which Hux doesn’t want to find attractive, but there’s a lot of things about this entire scenario he suspects he’s going to enjoy despite his better nature.

“The first time you wore this robe,” Kylo says. His thumb brushes over Hux’s nipple and he tugs at it, then scratches his nails over the skin, testing Hux’s reactions. “Lying there like a pin-up, telling me to do my worst. Wanted you then.”

Hux hadn’t factored in the notion that Kylo might actually find him attractive, as well as having no other options. He leans back into Kylo’s broad chest, enjoying the feel of rough hands on his skin. “Is that right? What strange tastes you have.”

“Don’t be so modest, General,” Kylo says. “I’ve seen the markets on Nal Hutta, you’d fetch quite the price.”

“How flattering,” Hux says, and doesn’t ask when someone like Kylo would have been anywhere near Hutt territory, considering the First Order doesn’t treat with them.

Kylo pushes him down so he’s bent over the table and lifts the hem of the robe until it’s halfway up Hux’s back and his ass is fully exposed. Hux had been expecting a quick handjob, but this will work. He’s certainly not above a little showing off, under the right circumstances, and he does so enjoy an appreciative audience. 

Hux hikes one knee up onto the desk and glances over his shoulder. “Go ahead,” he says. “Although I still don’t see what you get out of this arrangement.”

Kylo holds Hux's leg with one hand tucked behind his knee so Hux has to stay where he is; as though he might change his mind. Hux has some smart thing to say about that, but then a slick finger is pushing into him and he loses his train of thought.

"Another," Hux says.

Kylo's fingers are thick and long, and taking two so fast rides the edge of pain, Kylo's fingers just the right sort of rough. Hux lets his head hang forward between his shoulders. 

For a second Kylo seems to fumble, like now he's in Hux's ass he doesn't know what to do, but then he grazes Hux's prostate and Hux whines. "There," Kylo says, pleased. "That feels good?"

"Of course it does, you cretin," Hux says.

Kylo pets the skin of Hux’s back, dragging along the notches of his spine. He pinches one of Hux’s nipples, not too hard, just enough so Hux shudders under him, wrists pinned in place by...that's a good five hands too many. “Are you using the Force on me?” Hux demands.

Kylo works another finger into him. “Yes.”

Hux is fully hard now, pushing back against the pressure holding him, holding him down, fucking into him. He can’t tell at the moment which hands are real and what’s Kylo’s magic powers. Kylo spreads his fingers, wrenching a moan out of Hux. All the pressure tightens momentarily. It feels amazing and Hux decides he doesn’t care if it’s witchery or not.

“Again,” Kylo demands.

“Do a better job and I’ll make more noise,” Hux says.

Kylo pushes viciously against his prostate, and Hux has to bite back a howl. "Nasty little thing," Kylo says. “I know you like this. I can feel that you do. You're usually so hard to read, but not like this. Not when you're so open for me."

"Stars, are you going to attempt dirty talk?" Hux says, panting. He’s starting to sweat, strands of hair falling loose from the pomade as Kylo begins fingering him in earnest, thumb pressed against the skin between his balls and asshole. As though he's trying to wring every sort of noise out of Hux that he can.

A hand, or maybe it’s the Force, wraps around Hux’s cock and, no, that’s definitely one real hand around his cock and the other fingering him with wonderful ruthlessness. Kylo fucks him for a while, three big fingers sliding in and out in a way that would seem leisurely if he wasn’t sure to drag his knuckles over Hux’s prostate every time, and if he wasn’t breathing just as hard as Hux is.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Hux says, voice cracking over a moan as Kylo strokes him, the 'saber calluses on his hand rubbing over the head of his cock.

“You have no idea,” Kylo says. “The things I could do to you. The things I could make you do.”

Hux doesn’t like it when Kylo gets in his head but this time Kylo isn’t trying to pry into his thoughts. Instead, there’s a flurry of images pushed at him, snapshots, scant seconds of ideas. Most of them are of Hux from someone else’s perspective, getting fucked in various locales, including some sort of Sith temple, the cockpit of a rustbucket freighter Hux has never seen before, and Snoke’s throne room. None of it is especially imaginative. Hux has done wilder things on shore leave. Hell, he's done wilder things alone in his own quarters.

What’s more interesting to Hux, are the flashes of himself standing over some unseen person. He gets a strong impression of wanting to perform well; wanting to be good; hoping that Hux will tell him he's pleased.

Hux doubts Kylo meant to share that and he can’t even say he’s surprised. It’s nothing he hasn’t already learned through his little experiments.

“If you muster the courage to take more of your clothing off, and I like what I see, we could even do some of that,” Hux says.

"I want to," Kylo says, breathless, like he’s the one getting fucked. "Hux." 

The phantom hands on Hux haul him back until he’s upright, balanced precariously on one foot, knee on the desk, spine arched, back to Kylo’s chest. Kylo’s real hand is between his hips and Hux’s ass, so Hux still can’t tell if Kylo is hard, or if he has a cock. 

Hux knocks his head against Kylo’s shoulder as he pushes another finger into him and, stars, he hasn't been had like this in years. "At least call me Armitage while you're in me," Hux manages to say.

“Armitage,” Kylo says in a low rumble that Hux can feel through his back. 

Hux wishes it was skin to skin, one of the myriad side-benefits of a good lay. He wonders when Kylo last felt human hands on his body.

“You look so good,” Kylo says and twists his wrist so his fist slides over Hux’s cock in a very distracting sort of way. 

Hux holds onto Kylo’s forearm to feel it working. Kylo is everywhere, presence all around Hux, and it’s nothing like being pushed about or choked. He holds Hux up with his power, taking his weight, using it to make him feel good. Hux still thinks it's little better than a magic trick, but he wouldn’t kick it out of bed. And Kylo’s a quick study, if nothing else. His hand is firm on Hux’s cock, but not too tight, and he keeps up a steady pace that is exactly what Hux needs to get right to the edge.

Hux reaches behind himself and grabs the back of Kylo’s neck, just under his helmet. “Kylo,” he says.

Kylo jerks him faster and grinds his fingers into Hux. “I want to see,” he says. “Show me.” It sounds less like a demand than a plea.

Hux closes his eyes and, because Kylo has been surprisingly tolerable, doesn’t bother to muffle the way his breathing hitches into broken, breathless gasps when he comes.

Kylo’s hold on him tightens and he curses in Mando'a. “Armitage,” he says again.

He works Hux through it, and then, when Hux is wrung dry and on the verge of being overstimulated, he is careful about easing back. His hands are gentle now, the pressure on Hux’s body less grasping. Kylo helps him get both feet on the floor, and doesn’t just drop him onto the desk. The hand on Hux’s cock slides up so his arm is around Hux's waist. Of course, it means he manages to smear come all over Hux’s torso and up his own wrist, but worse things have happened.

They stand there, pressed together, both of them breathing hard. Kylo’s fingers are moving ever so slightly, back and forth, like he’s either rubbing come into Hux’s skin, or just sort of petting him. Hux decides he doesn’t care, and lets himself lean into Kylo, head still tipped back on his shoulder, until he doesn’t feel like he’s going to fall over in a boneless heap. He takes a moment to ponder how much of what Kylo wants he’s prepared to give.

“Not the sort of conversational foreplay I usually enjoy,” Hux says finally, straightening up. “And if you ever lift a hand against me in violence again, I will find a way to remove that hand, but a satisfactory conclusion. I certainly didn’t expect to enjoy myself this much.” He pushes Kylo’s arm away. “Give me a minute.”

Hux goes to the refresher and gives himself a cursory wipe-down. His reflection in the little standard-issue mirror shows a sweaty, flushed version of himself that Hux isn’t sure he likes. And he'd been expecting a mediocre handjob. Always a surprise. He splashes water on his face which helps with the redness, fluffs his hair back into order, and goes back out to face Kylo Ren. 

Back in the primary room of his quarters, Kylo is sitting on the edge of the desk. “Go wash your hands,” Hux says, collapsing on the couch and fumbling around in the side table for a tabacc stick and a light.

Kylo doesn’t take long before he emerges from the refresher, sleeves tugged down, gloves back on. It looks like one of the seams in his left sleeve has torn at the wrist. He’s ridiculous, Hux thinks, and is surprised at himself when it feels vaguely fond and not entirely scornful.

“Is there a reason you refuse to disrobe?” Hux asks. “Since we’ve established you don’t need the helmet to breathe, and that you have skin. It can’t possibly be because you’re ugly, because that wouldn’t preclude taking your trousers off. I prefer men, and I’m partial to cock, but not exclusively so, if that's what you're worried about.”

“The Master of the Knights of Ren has to be more than a body, more than just crude matter. I’m above a mere physical form,” Kylo says.

Hux takes a drag and breathes out a cloud of smoke. “You certainly are not,” Hux says. 

He thumbs a flake of tabacc off his tongue and can feel the change in the air from Kylo’s renewed interest. Hux smirks at him. He _told Hux_ this was the look that was the catalyst for this whole assignation. It’s not cheating if you were given the information and Hux knows how to use his resources. He crosses one leg over the other so the hem of the robe slides up his thigh. It’s not the same as being watched by someone who isn’t wearing a mask, but Kylo’s attention is so intense that Hux doesn't mind. 

Hux continues, “There’s nothing beyond the mortal ken about ill-advised interdepartmental workplace sex, and I’m not some dirt-farmer you need to strike the fear of the Order into. So, if you want to do this again, I’m going to have to insist on at least some of those layers coming off.”

Kylo reaches over and carefully brushes a strand of Hux’s hair back into place from where it’s fallen over his forehead. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Hux says mildly. "You know it still counts even if you leave your clothes on."

“I’ll think about it,” Kylo says and, miracle of miracles, takes the hint and leaves.

Hux finishes his smoke, comms Jenji to tell her he's not to be disturbed, and crawls into his bed. Millicent jumps up after him and chirps judgmentally.

“You like him,” Hux tells her, as she walks over his stomach. “Little traitor. Don’t sound so disapproving.”

She makes her way down his body and finally settles on his feet. He’s asleep about two seconds later.

Hux knows it’s a bad idea. He knew it was a bad idea when he did it, and it’s still a bad idea now. After some reflection, he considered telling Kylo that it was a one-time encounter and, despite what he’d said, it would never be repeated.

That would be the smart thing to do.

He doesn’t do the smart thing. Instead, he lets Kylo follow him to his quarters after his shift, push him up against the inside of the door, stick his enormous paw down Hux’s trousers, and give him an absolutely phenomenal handjob. He doesn't even insist that Kylo take off more than his gloves.

So, yes, it’s a bad idea, but Hux can’t quite remember all the reasons why.

Afterwards, Kylo sits on his couch and pets Millicent, while Hux puts himself back together and pours himself a drink. It’s rude to not at least offer, he supposes.

“Is there a vent or something you can stick a straw through?” Hux says, which, on reflection, was perhaps less polite than he could have been.

“I don’t consume intoxicants,” Kylo says, twitching once as Millicent begins to knead his leg. “They interfere with my connection to the Force.”

“Mm,” Hux says, unconvinced. “Just like you don’t have sex.”

“Did you know the Jedi are celibate?" Kylo asks, not looking away from Hux’s cat. “Sith, not so much, but the Jedi are. They're supposed to be, anyway.”

Hux’s eyebrows feel like they’re in his hairline. “How tedious,” he says, instead of ‘why the kriff would you think I needed or wanted to know that?’ 

Hux hasn't been a virgin since he was fifteen, no matter what standards of virginity anyone should choose to apply. By some metrics, he lost it when he was barely thirteen. He can’t imagine the purpose of abstaining, but then, he never knows what’s going on with the various orders surrounding the Force. No mention of the rules for the order Kylo commands, but Hux is almost certain that Gida Ren is in some kind of sexual or romantic relationship with Praxisuh Ren, so there’s that.

Kylo shrugs and rubs Millicent’s head with his knuckles. “I was in training to be a Jedi,” he says. Then, defensively, “When I was young.”

That...is not what Hux was expecting. “I see,” he says, even though he does not. 

Hux was obviously aware that Kylo had not sprung fully formed from the stars, that he had a childhood, and a whole adult life before he found his way onto Hux’s ship. He was a Knight of Ren before he became their master, and they were all off doing mysterious Knights of Ren things before Kylo was made Hux’s co-commander. Hux had imagined a lot of things, but never that he trained as a Jedi. 

Kylo defected from the enemy, Hux realizes.

It makes sense. The more fanatical of the First Order’s personnel are those who come to it on their own, and weren’t brought up in it, as Hux was, and Kylo is nothing if not a fanatic. Perhaps not one of the First Order, but certainly of whatever mystical Force nonsense it is he follows.

It also means that when Kylo took part in the destruction of the Jedi Temple, it wasn't strangers he was killing. They were people he knew, and had lived with. Hux had assumed Snoke sent the Knights of Ren to take out any competition that might arise. He hadn’t known it was a test of loyalty as well. 

Hux isn’t tasting his drink. He can’t even remember what he was having.

"I trained there for almost five years," Kylo says. "I was already called to the dark side, but I was young and foolish; under the influence of people determined to suppress my power.”

Hux has heard other religious beings talk about ‘a calling,’ but it meant nothing to him then, and it means nothing now. Hux doesn’t think he’ll ever understand it. He’s never been ruled by anything so esoteric as feelings. 

“And then Skywalker tried to murder me in my sleep,” Kylo says, as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

Hux pours himself another drink since he seems to have finished the first one. “I knew the Sith enjoyed bumping each other off,” Hux says, and is proud that his tone is calm and vaguely disinterested, “but I didn’t think the Jedi were much into that sort of thing.”

He has no idea how he ended up having this conversation with Kylo. It’s too much information, too carelessly thrown out. He’s missing important details. He has no idea where any of it fits in the larger scheme of things. Kylo can build speeders, and speaks Mando’a, and trained to be a Jedi under Luke Skywalker, the man who helped bring down the Empire and who, by many accounts, defeated two Sith lords himself.

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Hux says. “Why did he try and kill a student, and how did you survive? No, don’t get offended, you just said you were young and in training. I’m not saying you’re not, what is it? Strong in the Force. I’m saying it’s unusual for a student to best their teacher.”

Kylo, whose posture had begun to radiate indignation, relaxes. “He was afraid of my power,” Kylo says. “He knew I would surpass him. Snoke said so, and he was right.”

“Snoke?” Hux wants to bang his head against the nearest hard surface. This tale of defection, and Jedi, and karking religious calling does not need another twist in it. “What does he have to do with any of it?”

“He’s spoken to me all my life, even when I was a child. As far back as I can remember,” Kylo says, as though he’s somehow unaware that the very idea of the Supreme Leader reaching out to talk to a child, any child, is completely insane. “He knew the dark side was my true calling.”

Hux keeps his expression perfectly neutral. Until he’s processed the information there is no point in having a reaction to any of it. 

“I thought I had killed Skywalker, but I failed,” Kylo says. He stops petting Millicent, and she puts her little hand on his arm and gently pats at him. He makes some low sound that Hux thinks might have come out affectionately, if it wasn’t for the vocoder, and does as Her Majesty bids, resuming his duties. He still won’t look at Hux when he says, “He lived, and now I can’t find him.” 

Hux has the feeling this is what Kylo actually wants to talk about. He appears to be under the misapprehension that one missing Jedi is somehow more important than literally everything else he just told Hux. On the other hand, finding rebels is part of Hux’s job and that, at least, he has an opinion on.

“It might go faster if you had help,” Hux points out.

Kylo shakes his head. “I have to do it,” he says. “It was my failure.”

“Be that as it may, you’re at least nominally part of the First Order. You can call upon our resources. There are half a dozen specialist units whose only function is finding persons of interest.”

“You’ll never find him without the Force,” Kylo says. “I can’t find him _with_ it.”

“Maybe he’s dead,” Hux says with a shrug.

“I would have felt that,” Kylo says. “No, he lives. But he’s hiding, like the coward he is.”

Hux isn’t overly concerned with what constitutes cowardly behaviour in the eyes of Force-users. Cowardice, to him, is desertion, or failure to perform in battle. It’s not cowardly to use whatever tactics allow you to win. Obviously Jedi, or Sith, or the Ren, feel differently. The idea that his master-at-the-time would try to kill him in his sleep is deeply offensive to Kylo.

“You beat him once,” Hux says. “You can do it again. You’re older now, stronger.”

Kylo lets Millicent chew on his hand without seeming to notice she’s doing it. “Snoke thinks I’m too weak.”

Hux has a lot of opinions about that, all of which would probably get him killed if he voiced them. “Have you considered,” Hux says carefully, “that the Supreme Leader is using that as a goad to make you work harder and not because he actually believes it to be true?”

“No,” Kylo says. “My master knows my weaknesses. He has always been honest with me.”

“I admit I’m not an expert,” Hux says, because he is beginning to think that Snoke is rarely honest with the man that he, in theory, is supposed to be training, “but I’m struggling to think of another person in the galaxy other than the Supreme Leader who could offer you a legitimate challenge. Really. Name one. Perhaps there is more to achieve, but you’re competing against yourself at this point.”

Kylo finally lifts his head. His mask cocks to the side. “I’m flattered,” he says, but he sounds like he means it.

Hux takes another sip of his drink. "Truth isn’t flattery. It just baffles me; with all your skill and power, you're still allowing yourself to be leashed by expectations."

"That's life," Kylo says, fatalistically. He grunts when Millicent jumps off his lap and stalks away, done with him for now. "Labouring under the expectations of others. For a time I thought I could make my own choices. I know now that destiny is stronger than will." 

It could have been an impressive pronunciation of Kylo’s philosophy. But it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s trying to brush orange cat hair off his clothing. That, and Hux thinks it’s the stupidest thing he’s heard Kylo say for at least an hour. The man is full of religious aphorisms that sound clever, but mean nothing, or mean something patently untrue.

"You know how I feel about the concept of destiny,” Hux says. “Besides, considering your place in the scheme of things, who gives a damn what anyone else thinks? The only expectations that matter are your own.”

“I’m supposed to believe you don’t have expectations of me?"

Hux suppresses a sigh. "Kylo, I stopped expecting anything in particular from you some time ago. Every time I did, you surprised me. So I stopped."

Kylo doesn't move and Hux realizes Kylo's just staring at him. 

"What would you command me to do?" Kylo asks at last. He’s looking for something in Hux’s answer, but damned if Hux knows what it is. Kylo’s relationship to the command structure of the First Order is a tempestuous one.

Well, it’s not as though Hux hasn’t thought about it. 

Hux leans back in his chair, swirling his drink in the glass. "One or two planned skirmishes against our enemies, with a large number of Stormtroopers on hand to witness you and the Knights in full combat. They’re terrible gossips. Word will spread. Leave some survivors to carry the story to the rest of the galaxy.

"Some light propaganda so the Order sees you as their champion. Let them know a few minor details about the Knights so people can have favourites, keep them talking about you. Maybe let them see one or two of the more attractive of you without the masks. But that’s more to raise morale on our side. Obviously some strategic assassinations. If any of you has a deft enough touch to manipulate minds without being noticed, then get them within range of some key Republic leaders...Gida Ren, I think. Isn't she good at that? I could go on for days."

"What?" Kylo says.

Hux crosses his legs at the ankle. "I told you, I'm a tactical genius. I have several solid plans to win this war. Snoke didn't like them, but I enjoy thinking about them now and again."

"You could win the war?"

"Is there an echo in here?” Hux says. “Of course I could win the war. That's my job."

"But Snoke said no?"

"Questioning the Supreme Leader usually ends poorly for me. I can only assume he has some grander scheme I'm not privy to."

After that, Kylo lets him steer the conversation away to something less fraught. He’s quiet though. Hopefully Hux has given him something to think about, but hasn’t grossly overstepped. 

Once Kylo takes his leave, Hux refills his glass and stares into its depths. He’s been trying to put it together. Ever since Phasma brought it up, it’s been running in the background of his mind: Who caused the trauma unrelated to battle that made Kylo unstable? Now, Hux thinks he might have some answers, and he doesn’t like what he’s found.

Skywalker on one side, Snoke on the other, and Kylo trapped in some sort of cosmic tug-of-war between two religious concepts. Two concepts that aren’t even real in any tangible way, but that have been the cornerstones of his life. No wonder Kylo is cracked.

More importantly, everything Hux learned about Kylo has given him the tools to improve his behaviour, his performance as a co-commander, and even their personal relationship. Snoke has done the opposite. He's chipped away at Kylo’s confidence and self-worth. He uses punishment instead of reward, disapproval and humiliation when the smallest measure of praise would have exponentially better results. Everything Snoke does makes Kylo _less_ stable.

Hux grabs his comm and hails Phasma. “I need to get fantastically drunk,” he tells her. “Call-in-sick-tomorrow shitfaced. And we need to talk.”

“I don’t understand it!” Hux says, two buttons on his uniform undone, boots off. Phasma came by his quarters and brought the good liquor for this one. He's actually glad they're not in her rooms because there's no way he was going to make the walk back to his rooms without making a spectacle of himself.

Phasma drums her neatly clipped fingernails on her glass. “Are you trying to figure out why the Supreme Leader does what he does?”

“I just want to have some inkling as to why he’d make Kylo his apprentice and then deliberately destabilize him. Look at what I’ve accomplished in the past few months! Snoke has had a lifetime to get results, and apparently what he wants is the human equivalent of a Starkiller that malfunctions and shoots off at random.” He gestures in demonstration and sloshes Corellian sour over his hand.

“You’re getting pretty worked up about this,” Phasma notes.

“Don’t give me that,” Hux says. “You’re the one who wanted me to look into it. Yes, Kylo is damaged. Someone did something and now he's easy to manipulate. And Snoke's using it in the most inexplicable manner possible."

“I thought there’d be a simple answer and you could just have someone killed,” she admits. “Let Ren take that temper out on whatever or whoever deserves it. Put it to rest, move on.”

"What happened doesn't even matter! I don't care if he was a child spice-miner, or if someone was raping his guts out every day of his life. Why isn't Snoke using it to improve his behaviour?" Hux shakes his head and then wishes he hadn't as the entire ship moves under him. “I just don’t understand,” he says again. He closes one eye. It helps stabilize the room.

“What’s your endgame?” Phasma says. “In a perfect world. And put your head down if you’re that drunk. Otherwise you’re going to end up on the floor again and I don’t want to hear you complaining about how cold durasteel is.”

Hux does not put his head down because he is not that drunk. He’s just almost that drunk. “I would...What were you saying?”

“What’s your goal? What’s your dream for the First Order?”

“Crush the Resistance, bring the Republic to heel, subdue the outer reaches, and bring peace and order to the galaxy,” Hux says promptly.

“I keep forgetting you actually believe all the shit you say.” Phasma holds up a hand to forstall his protests. “Armitage, pay attention, I’m helping you. The things you do are designed to bring you closer to your goal. The things you do on a personal and professional level expand outwards into the Order, and into the galaxy. One move affecting another, affecting another. Are you following?”

Hux frowns at her. “I am,” he says, and absolutely is not slurring his words, “capable of following a great many things all at once.”

Phasma grins at him. “You know what else I forget; what a hilarious drunk you are.” Hux isn’t sure what he does that’s so entertaining, but she full-on laughs then. “And how pink you get.”

Hux touches his face. He does feel a little flushed. But he is not _pink_. “Phasma,” he says. “Focus.”

She shakes her head, fond and indulgent. “Okay, General. If I wanted to know what your goals were, I could look at the things you do, and project outwards from that. So if you want to know the Supreme Leader’s plan for Kylo Ren then look at what he’s doing now. Step by step. Where does it lead?”

Hux contemplates this while he drinks more.

He wakes up in his bed with a terrible hangover, clothes in a wrinkled pile on the floor, and without even the shred of an answer to his questions. There’s a cup of water next to the bed with his datapad propped up against it so he can see the note waiting for him.

 _How’s the head, General?_ the text reads.

_While you lay on the floor and complained about the temperature of durasteel, I reconsidered. I shouldn’t have encouraged you. Whatever Snoke is doing with his apprentice is none of our business, malfunctioning Starkiller or not. Don’t get involved, I don’t want to have to break in another commanding officer if you get executed._

_Drink some water, take a painkiller. I’ll see you in the gym.  
—P_

Hux drinks the water, takes two painkillers and a stim, and goes to meet Phasma to sweat out his hangover. But he’ll be damned if he lets this go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Kylo Force-chokes Hux.
> 
> Later, Kylo uses the Force on Hux during a fully consensual sexual encounter without asking first. He uses it to hold Hux in a sex position, and to touch him. Hux is not upset by it. 
> 
> Hux reflects that he had lost his virginity by the age of 15, or perhaps at age 13—depending on what you think virginity is. It is not specified what he did, the consent level, or the age, gender, or number of person/persons he was having sexual contact with.
> 
> Hux gets drunk with Phasma and is dismissive about what trauma Kylo might have suffered. He uses graphic language to describe a potential history of rape.
> 
> NOTES:  
> "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter," is something Yoda says to Luke. 
> 
> The Knights mentioned aren’t canon because the fact that all the canon knights are male gives me rage. So these are two of my own creation.
> 
> Gida Ren is a female twi’lek. Her name simply means ‘warrior.’
> 
> Praxisuh Ren is a Rattataki female. Her name technically means nothing because there’s no database for Rattataki names, but (because I see how Star Wars is never subtle about naming characters) contains the word ‘Praxis’ which means both an activity engaged in by free people, and is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized.


	3. A Perfectly Normal Human Man

Two days (and one extremely risky quickie up against the door of conference room F2-112.3, one of Kylo’s hands on his cock, the other over Hux’s mouth) later, Hux is summoned to see Snoke. He gathers his updates on Starkiller, troop action, and the latest Rebel intelligence; he keeps a brief summary of operations ready at all times because Snoke likes to demand information seemingly at random.

Hux takes a moment outside the chamber to double-check his uniform is spotless—it is—and then he enters. It’s a long walk to where the Snoke’s holo waits on the far side of the room. A longer walk, perhaps, than it needs to be. Hux understands pageantry, but surely routine status updates could be done in a boardroom. He tries not to dwell on things like that. Instead, he focuses his thoughts on the information he has to relay.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux says.

He doesn’t get any further than that before Snoke cuts him off. 

"Faithless worm," Snoke hisses.

From everything Kylo has told him, Snoke _probably_ can’t read Hux’s mind from wherever he is. Additionally, Hux’s ability to compartmentalize and to focus on any one thing over another makes him hard to read. Kylo grudgingly admitted that Hux has enough walls and archives in his memory to make searching through his mind a difficult task. So, just in case Snoke can read him, Hux does not think about his little experiment on Kylo, or their assignations, or any other thing that might get him killed. 

He has spent a lot of time in Snoke’s presence not thinking about things that could get him killed. 

Instead, Hux runs down an inventory of why he does not deserve to be thrown around. All his reports are positive. There hasn’t been any action in his sector worth mentioning, certainly no lost battles. No delays on Starkiller. No suspicious deaths (or unsuspicious ones), not so much as a discontented rumble from the crew. Nothing that would warrant a dressing down, never mind an accusation of treachery. 

“Supreme Leader,” he says, kneeling, “I have always been loy—”

“Silence! My apprentice told me how you came to him with plans to further your own ambition.”

“What? What—” Hux manages not to say ‘total fucking bantha shit’ “—did Master Ren say to you?” 

“Now you seek to cover it up and lie to me?” 

“Supreme Leader, I assure you, I am loyal to the end, and I have not been conspiring!” 

Hux doesn’t add: and if I was, I wouldn’t bring Kylo in on it because I’m not a congenital idiot. 

He really hopes Snoke can’t hear that thought. 

“Then what did you mean by your plans to command the Knights of Ren against my express instructions?”

Hux keeps his face very, very still because if he doesn’t he’s going to roll his eyes, or make some other expression that will get him into more trouble than he’s already in. “Ah,” he says. “That conversation.” 

Hux doesn’t know what Kylo has under his robes, but he’s going to find something soft and vulnerable to punch.

“So you admit that you tried to circumvent my authority?”

“Master Ren and I were discussing my background in tactics. I mentioned that I had drafted one or two theoretical proposals for you, in regards to stamping out the rebellion. In fact, I was very clear that you have some other plan that I am not sufficiently important enough to have full knowledge of. I didn’t suggest my ideas should be implemented, or that they deserved to be brought back to your attention, Supreme Leader. Nor did I assert any right to so much as _ask_ the Knights of Ren to do anything.”

Snoke leans forwards, eye narrowed. Hux can’t feel any intrusion into his mind, but he thinks of Starkiller’s plans in excruciating detail, just in case Snoke has managed to slip in unnoticed.

“Very well,” Snoke says, after a time. He sounds dissatisfied. “See that your loyalty does not waver, General.”

Hux bows his head. “Yes, Supreme—”

Snoke doesn’t wait for him to finish before the holo cuts out.

Hux is going to _kill_ Kylo for this.

Hux has the override codes to all the rooms on _Finalizer_. He doesn't abuse it, but he also doesn't think twice about forcing Kylo's door open. He's incandescent with rage until he sees what's in front of him and then he’s just...stunned. Stuck in place, staring, not sure he believes his eyes.

Kylo is sitting in the middle of the floor, legs folded, palms upturned on his knees. He’s dressed in soft trousers and an A-shirt suited to the gym. Or, apparently, to meditation.

He’s not wearing the mask.

Snoke’s apprentice, Master of the Knights of Ren, the Jedi Killer, isn’t monstrous at all. He's a perfectly normal human man. A surprisingly young man, but just a man. 

Kylo looks up at Hux; his generous mouth opens in shock, dark eyes wide and startled. Every emotion is writ large for Hux to see. Hux hasn’t been vulnerable like that for a very long time. He’s like the knives he keeps against regulation; sharp and deadly. Kylo, for all his physical strength and Force abilities, looks soft and easily wounded. No wonder he wears a mask. 

Kylo stands up, fists clenched, radiating fury. Hux appraises him from the wave of his long hair to the pale skin of his oversized feet against the dark floor. He's shorter without his helmet. With Kylo in bare feet, and Hux in his boots, they’re nearly of a height. And yet, somehow, his usual clothing has contrived to make him look leaner than he actually is.

“Get out,” Kylo says. The lights flicker and every piece of furniture starts shaking but even his voice is gentle and soft.

“I will not,” Hux says, making a decision. He peels off his gloves and drops them on the floor. “I only have my rest shift before I have to get back to work, and I need to berate you at length for what you said to Snoke and also sleep at some point. We'll need to get a move on if you're going to fuck me properly."

“Don't mock me,” Kylo says, incandescent with humiliation. A light shatters in its fixture.

Hux gives him a withering look. “When I'm mocking you, you'll know it. Really, Kylo, finding out you're handsome is hardly going to make me _less_ nice to you.”

Kylo stares at him. The furniture stops shaking. The lights stop flickering. “You…” he says. Nothing else seems to be forthcoming.

“I enjoy kissing,” Hux says, pulling off his boots and socks, cold floor be damned. “So, if you're not too feeble to perform without your helmet, then get over here and make yourself useful.”

Kylo stands there for another moment, a thunderstruck expression on his face, and then he grabs Hux by one wrist and the back of his head and drags him in. He doesn’t pull Hux’s hair, or try to force him in one direction or another, he just has one big hand cupping the back of Hux’s head. He’s a warm, solid body pressed all up against Hux, and not once in the years they’ve known one another, not even when he had Kylo's fingers in his ass, had Hux ever expected this to be what was under those robes. 

Kylo has sharp, pointed canines, which Hux knows because the way Kylo kisses is...It could use some improvement. He uses too much tongue, and he keeps biting Hux’s lips, mouth clumsy and greedy. 

Hux stops so he can say, “I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to rush.”

Kylo swallows, loud enough to hear, throat working, and Hux leans back in before Kylo can start overthinking it. He puts a hand in Kylo’s hair to hold him back. Just enough that he can show Kylo how he likes to be kissed. It takes a second, but Kylo’s still a quick study.

When he’s satisfied Kylo can manage without his supervision, Hux pulls away again. “Take off your clothes,” Hux says, “I want to see you.”

Kylo strips off his A-shirt and then just stands there, half-naked. He’s in superb physical condition, but despite his posturing and the slight flex of muscle—and, stars, that’s a lot of muscle—his expression is wary and unsure.

“Fuck, you are monstrous. Look at the size of you,” Hux says, shrugging his tunic onto the floor. He can feel a vicious grin split his face. “Take off your trousers as well, I bet your cock is enormous.” 

It’s not a guess. The thin fabric of Kylo’s meditation clothing is not doing anything to disguise his erection.

Kylo looks a little hunted, but he loosens the waistband of his trousers and then lets them fall down his big thighs to the floor. He steps out of them, and watches, wide-eyed, as Hux splays his hand on his hip, just next to where Kylo’s cock is curved up heavy and thick. Kylo’s skin is soft, scattered with moles and scars, and he puts out heat like an engine running in overdrive. Hux drsgs his fingers up Kylo’s side, across his chest and down one arm. Kylo shudders under his hand and his breath comes out in a whine. 

"Very nice," Hux says. “How many hours do you spend training?"

Kylo looks at Hux’s hand smoothing over the curve of his bicep, a little dazed. "Not sure," he says. "Whenever I don't have anything else to do."

And Kylo is always so desperately bored.

He strokes Kylo’s chest again just to watch the way he twitches when Hux just barely brushes a nipple. "I can see how much effort you’ve put in by the results. You've done very well." 

Praise has worked wonders on Kylo so far, and sure enough, his cock jerks against his stomach. He lunges forward and kisses Hux. "Armitage," he says, like it's been torn from him. 

To Hux’s immense displeasure, Kylo gets his hands under his thighs and lifts him in such a way that Hux has to put his legs around Kylo’s waist and an arm around his shoulders, or risk tipping backwards onto the floor.

“Do not—” Hux says, but doesn’t get to finish, because Kylo’s tongue is in his mouth, and he’s not even working hard to hold Hux up as he walks them into his bedroom.

Kylo, the wretched show-off, actually lets go with one hand, so he can touch Hux’s shoulders and the back of his neck as they go. Hux isn’t a large man, but he’s not as light as he looks. Kylo still doesn’t have any problem supporting his weight, focused on kissing Hux’s throat, scraping his teeth over the skin.

Hux grabs a handful of his hair and pulls his head back. Kylo’s pupils dilate rapidly and he loses his breath in a rush.

“Put me down,” Hux says, tugging a little harder, just to watch the desperate arousal on Kylo’s face.

Kylo does as he’s told, which ought to be rewarded. Hux takes off the rest of his clothing, because Kylo is deeply odd and seems to enjoy the sight of Hux’s skinny, pale legs.

“I can’t believe you don’t make your bed,” Hux says, frowning in disapproval at the woefully untidy mess of twisted blankets. “Or have a droid do it. Leaving it like this is just lazy.”

“Easier to get you into it,” Kylo says, tossing the blanket down to the end of the mattress. 

“Oh, of course, it’s all for my benefit,” Hux says sarcastically, but gets on the bed. He lies on his back, propped up on his elbows, legs open enough for Kylo to get between them. “Well, here I am. Would you like me to fuck you?” Hux asks, feeling generous enough to give Kylo options. “Or maybe you'd like to stick that battering ram cock into me."

Kylo stalls out. He's got one knee on the mattress, half-on, half-off, and he's braced in position, as though he’s afraid Hux will laugh, or change his mind. “I've never,’ he says. Then, "My training." His ears, as oversized as the rest of him, go red at the tips. 

It’s one thing to suspect, another to know: Hux is going to be Kylo Ren’s first. Hux hasn’t had a virgin in years, it's usually not worth the effort. Kylo has to be around Hux's own age, and he’s beautiful. How the hell he got so far in his life without someone bending him over the nearest halfway sturdy surface, Hux has no idea. He would be a fool to change his mind; he's seen Kylo fight. The man knows how to move.

“You know what to do with your body, you’re good at that sort of thing,” Hux says. “Come up here.”

Kylo crawls up the bed, until Hux’s legs are spread over his thighs. He’s still a little tense, but Hux figures that’s a given for a first time.

"Do you have an idea of preference?" Hux asks.

"I want to fuck you," Kylo says hoarsely. “But…” He pushes his cock down to line up against Hux's, like he's assessing their comparative sizes. 

If Kylo says one smart thing about the size of Hux's cock—which is the exact average for his biological sex, species, and planet of origin, thank you very much—Hux might actually hit him. But Kylo is biting his lip, and he's got a worried little furrow between his brows and Hux realizes it’s not his cock Kylo is measuring his own prick against, it's Hux's admittedly narrow pelvis.

Kylo puts his thumbs together just under Hux's navel and stretches out his hands, wrapping them around Hux's waist. His fingers don't quite touch behind Hux's back but it’s a small enough distance. Then Kylo curses in what Hux thinks might be Durese, and tightens his grip just as Hux breathes out. He can feel Kylo's fingertips meet and Hux makes a sharp, bitten-off sound, body clenching with arousal. 

"It's not going to fit," Kylo says. "I'll split you in half."

Hux stretches his arms up over his head so the line of his body is exaggerated, and Kylo’s hands look enormous around him. "I promise you it will. Don’t worry, I’ve taken bigger.”

For a second Kylo just blinks at him. Then he lets go of Hux so he can pull open the drawer next to the bed and grab a half-empty bottle of the standard lubricant provided for troopers. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he says, sounding delighted. “I’m going to remind you of that later, when you’re so full you can’t breathe enough to goad me. See if you have anything to say then.”

“Promises, promises,” Hux says. 

Really though, Kylo’s cock is large enough that it would be much easier to take with Hux on his hands and knees. Hux might have suggested changing positions except for the determined set to Kylo's jaw and how susceptible he is to perceived criticism. Teasing him is one thing, but the vaguest hint that Hux doesn’t want to look at him while they fuck, having only just seen his face, is likely to upset him.

Hux hooks one leg over Kylo’s hip. "Just like before," he says. "But this time you're opening me up for you." 

Kylo doesn't waste any time before slicking two fingers and getting them into Hux. He's rough, on the edge of too much, just how Hux likes it, and he’s more than happy to kiss Hux while he opens him up, as much of their bodies pressed together as he can get, his cock dragging up the inside of Hux’s thigh.

“Look at you,” Hux says, pushing Kylo’s hair out of his face. “I didn’t know how hard you were concentrating, making sure I like it.” 

“You do like it,” Kylo says, as if he’s asking a question, instead of the statement he probably meant it to be.

“I’d tell you if I didn’t,” Hux says. “You’ve got amazing hands, even if they are the size of shovels. Give me another finger. There’s no way you’re getting that thing into me otherwise.”

Kylo turns his attention to Hux’s neck and now that the bruises have finally faded, he seems determined to give Hux a whole new set, this time with his mouth. “We are not adolescents,” Hux says, digging his heel into one of Kylo’s kidneys to discourage him. “Do not give me a hickey on my neck or I will space you.”

Kylo ducks his head and bites Hux’s chest instead. When Hux is about to speak, Kylo pushes a third finger into him and Hux only moans instead of telling Kylo he’s not as clever as he thinks he is.

"Can I fuck you now?" Kylo says. He sits back enough to see where he’s holding Hux open and twists his fingers. 

"Yes, hells, do it," Hux says, even though he should make Kylo loosen him up a little more. He likes the way Kylo is looking at him: a man who can’t quite believe his good fortune, who thinks he's getting away with something he shouldn't be.

Kylo has enough sense to get his cock wet with lube before trying anything. Then he curls up over Hux, arms wrapped under his shoulders to hold him in place. Hux takes a steadying breath and does his best to relax. It doesn't help. Kylo shoves the first few inches of his cock into him without warning and Hux claws at his back, breath punched out of him.

"Sorry, sorry," Kylo says.

"Don't apologize," Hux hisses, "keep going."

Kylo shifts awkwardly for a second. Then he balances his weight on one arm and uses the other hand to grab onto Hux's thigh and pull it higher up his body. He flexes forward, and Hux really wasn’t as ready as he thought. But already Kylo’s getting the hang of things. He pulls almost all the way out, and then fills Hux up again with a fluidity that lets Hux know exactly how flexible in the hips Kylo is. It’s amazing, he doesn’t lose any power behind his thrusts, but there’s no hesitation between the moment he’s pulling back, or pushing in. It’s all one smooth motion. Hux can’t keep his mouth shut, little cracked moans forced out of him every time Kylo stuffs him full of cock.

“I never knew,” Kylo says. “I didn’t think you’d...” His accent is sliding somewhere low-class, away from his usual mid-world register.

Kylo puts a hand over Hux’s stomach, big and possessive, like he’ll be able to feel his cock from the outside. That’s not humanly possible, but Hux arches up under him anyway. Kylo leans in so they can kiss, his hair getting in their mouths until Hux reaches up and tucks it behind his ears. How had Hux never known that this was what was underneath that helmet? This strange, beautiful man. 

“Don’t,” Kylo says, ducking his head away so his hair falls forward again. “I’m not.”

“Not what?” Hux says. He’s using the little room he has to arch up into Kylo’s steady, brutal thrusts, but Kylo’s starting to sweat and Hux’s heel keeps slipping down his back. He can't keep himself at quite the right angle for Kylo to hit his prostate anymore. 

Kylo stops what he’s doing and puts one of Hux’s legs up over his shoulder, the other still wrapped around his waist. It tips Hux's entire lower body up off the mattress, and Kylo might be flexible, but he certainly isn’t, muscles shaking as he tries to relax. Despite the stretch, it’s the perfect angle. Then Hux can feel the pressure of the Force holding him still. There’s nowhere for him to go, he’s pinned in place, Kylo’s cock relentlessly pushing into him. He grabs Kylo’s hair and Kylo grinds his hips into Hux’s ass, and sucks another bruise onto his neck, just low enough that his uniform will probably cover it if Kylo leaves a bruise. 

“Stop mauling me,” Hux says. “I said you could fuck me, not chew on me.”

“You like it. You’re thinking it very loudly.” Kylo bites him again, pointedly this time. 

Getting into bed with a mind reader was either a very good, or very terrible idea.

Kylo fucks like he fights—like a force of nature, like something unstoppable and inevitable. Hux had thought it was good before. It’s phenomenal. Hux doesn’t have to worry about bracing against Kylo’s thrusts, so he gets a hand between them and strokes himself.

“You feel so good,” Kylo says. Blaster to head, Hux couldn't say if Kylo means he likes fucking Hux, or if he can feel how Hux feels.

“Just like this, it’s perfect,” Hux says, because Kylo likes to be told when he’s doing well. 

Kylo lights up and Hux can feel that too, little flashes of information unconsciously pushed into his head. Even if he couldn't, he'd still know. The room is humming with Kylo's power, lights over-bright, electrics buzzing in the walls, the air scrubbers kicking on as he loses control. It's pathological, it's absolutely pathological how much affirmation affects Kylo. His entire being is focused on Hux. He wants to be good at this, he needs to be good. All of it, all of his intensity and power put to serving Hux.

Hux comes, gasping out Kylo’s name, his whole body wracked with orgasm. Kylo flinches and licks at Hux’s throat and the curve of his jaw like an animal. Another light meets its demise, popping in its casing.

“Can I?” Kylo says, voice as wrecked as if he’d been chewing on transparisteel. “Please, Armitage.”

Hux isn’t sure if Kylo’s asking persmission to keep fucking him or permisson to come, but it doesn’t really matter.

He pushes his fingers into Kylo’s mouth. “You are good, aren’t you? Asking so nicely. Go ahead.”

Kylo gulps air, staring at Hux like he’s the answer to all of life’s questions, and sucks the come off Hux’s fingers, turning his head to get at the mess dripping down his palm. Kylo’s hips work in tight little jerks and then he’s coming too. Hux, very thoughtfully, pulls his hair for him until he’s done.

The lights dim back to their usual brightness, and the pressure in the room dissipates as Kylo catches his breath, taking his weight off Hux. He eases Hux’s legs down to the mattress and pulls out carefully. Then he hovers over Hux, lower lip caught between his teeth, cock softening against his thigh, hair a disaster.

“If you’re waiting for a written invitation, you’ll be there forever,” Hux says.

Kylo huffs out a big, satisfied breath and pancakes mostly on top of him, which isn’t quite what Hux meant. He weighs about the same as a yellow dwarf, is putting out as much heat as one, and he’s very sweaty, but Hux actually likes it. He hasn’t been fucked like that in quite some time, and his body has decided to react to the rush of chemicals, hormones, and stimulation, by shaking. Having the weight of a small planet on top of him is quite soothing.

After a moment, Kylo shifts so he’s lying next to Hux. He props himself up on his elbow, hand tucked under Hux’s neck so he can run his thumb up and down the long muscles there, the other low on Hux’s stomach. He keeps one leg slung over both of Hux’s, and it’s not the same as him acting like a weighted blanket, but it’s not bad either.

“You’re shaking,” Kylo says.

“Am I?” Hux says, with what he doubts is the appropriate level of sarcasm. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Kylo presses a hesitant kiss to his shoulder, some wariness returning to his posture. “Was it…” He can’t seem to make himself ask.

It’s very hard for Hux to reconcile the man he’s in bed with, with the creature terrorizing his ship only a few months ago. He’s going to need to see Kylo put the helmet on, Hux thinks, to really believe it. Until then, he simply has to accept that the Master of the Knights of Ren is a young man who just got laid for the first time, and is trying to find out if he was any good.

“I know you don’t have a basis for comparison,” Hux says, after discarding several answers to Kylo’s unspoken question on the basis that they would probably hurt his delicate feelings. “But yes, it was good.”

“Yeah?” Kylo says, almost shyly. His back straightens by fractions, and he looks less like he’s expecting to be slapped away.

“Considering that was our first time together, and your first time, full stop, I’m impressed.”

Hux watches as first the praise and then the implication that they will do this again lands.

“You should know, I’m kind of an overachiever,” Kylo says, ducking his head to cover his pleased expression. “I don’t like being second place.”

Hux groans. “I was right, you are going to kill me.” He waves a hand in the air. “Armitage Hux. Respected General. Loyal member of the First Order. Died because Kylo Ren has an enormous cock and a burning desire to outperform people who have sex for a living. He leaves behind the Starkiller, and Millicent the cat. Neither of whom will miss him.”

Kylo smothers a laugh against Hux’s hair. “Millie would miss you.”

“Do not call her Millie.”

“She said I could.” Kylo kisses Hux’s jaw and then bites his earlobe just hard enough to sting. He’s very affectionate out of the mask. Hux isn’t sure how to feel about that. “I can talk to animals through the Force.”

“No you can’t,” Hux says.

Kylo’s smile creases up his whole face. It’s wide and a little lop-sided, and shows off his pointed teeth. “No, I can’t.”

That, more than anything, is hard to reconcile. Who knew? Under the mask, the ill temper, and the threat of his power, is a young man with crooked teeth and a goofy smile. The more Hux manages to find out about Kylo, the less he understands.

Hux shifts a little, trying to decide if he wants to get up and go for a sonic or if he’s going to wait a few more minutes. He shouldn’t have let Kylo come in him, it’s starting to seep out of him, but he’s not quite ready to move.

“Are you…?” Kylo says, but doesn't continue.

“Are you going to finish any of your questions today?” Hux asks, without real annoyance. “I’m not the one who can read minds.”

Kylo lifts one of Hux’s legs up by the back of the knee. Hux isn’t in any pain, and he’s prepared to cut off any fussing or worrying. He’s not expecting Kylo to let out a pleased sigh. Kylo shuffles around so he’s kneeling between Hux’s thighs and props Hux’s calf up on his shoulder so he has both hands free. 

“What are you doing?” Hux demands.

Kylo rubs two fingers over Hux’s hole and then pushes them both in. “You’re so wet,” he says. “It’s just dripping out of you.”

Hux’s body jerks. He is not ready for another round. Not even remotely. “Kylo,” he says. It comes out in a gasp.

“I just want to see,” Kylo says, which is an utter lie, because he’s got two karking fingers in Hux and he keeps sliding them out to see his own come, and then rubbing it around the sore little ring of Hux’s asshole. Kylo starts massaging Hux’s perineum with his thumb, persistent enough that Hux’s cock, still soft, starts to leak precome. 

“Kylo,” Hux says. “I’m done.”

Kylo turns his head so he can kiss Hux’s leg. “I don’t think I am,” he says. 

“That isn’t how this works,” Hux says because he’s not setting a precedent where Kylo thinks he’s in charge. “I said no.”

Kylo stops trying to finger him, and looks at Hux with a strange expression on his face. Hux hasn’t seen him in battle out of the mask, but he imagines that’s what Kylo might look like when he’s running strategies in his head.

“I wasn’t trying to fuck you again,” Kylo says. 

Hux slaps Kylo in the ear with his foot. “Your definition of what counts as fucking and what doesn’t is wildly incorrect,” he says.

Kylo pets covetously at the inside of Hux’s thighs. “I just want to touch you. The way you look right now. You’re so pink and swollen, and I...” He’s very intense for a man who only just came. “I made a mess,” he says, “I should clean it up.”

Hux has a moment of silence for his own common sense. “Fine, whatever it is you’re thinking, go ahead. Just don’t expect any participation.”

Kylo rummages around in a drawer until he finds a tie for his hair. “Gimme one second,” he says, pulling it back into a rough tail. He hesitates halfway through the process, suddenly awkward again.

“Yes, I can see your ears,” Hux says. “Yes, I still think you’re handsome.”

“I wasn’t—” Kylo says, immediately defensive, but gives it up when Hux shoots him a pointed look. “Alright, I know I'm vain, you don't have to tell me.” He finishes putting his hair back.

Hux is pretty sure it’s not vanity if you're embarrassed by your own appearance and are trying to hide perceived flaws, but he's more interested in the way Kylo's staring at him thoughtfully, than he is about arguing semantics and proper definitions of words.

“Any day now,” Hux says and immediately regrets it when Kylo manhandles him onto his stomach with very little effort. He’d been assuming that Kylo would carry on with what he’d been doing before, so he is not prepared at all when Kylo spreads his ass with his hands, and licks him, balls to tailbone.

“How much holoporn do you watch?” Hux says. If Kylo is coming up with this on his own, then he’s a lot more imaginative than Hux gave him credit for, and Hux is in serious trouble.

“I don’t?” Kylo says, and then curls his tongue into Hux, like he’s determined to get every drop of his own come out of him.

Kylo eats him out for a while, thumbs flirting around Hux’s hole, but not pushing in. He’s not hesitant about it, licking at Hux until he’s dripping spit instead of come. Hux clutches at the sheets and tries not to squirm because if he does, the friction is going to make him hard, and he can’t get hard again so soon.

“You sure I can’t put my fingers in you?” Kylo says, wiping his mouth and chin off with his forearm. 

“Fine, yes, just go easy.”

“Fantastic,” Kylo says, completely without sarcasm. 

He pushes a thumb into Hux, just the first knuckle, and licks around it until Hux is arching back, desperate for him to stop fucking around. He can feel Kylo smiling for just a second, before he’s got the other thumb sliding in next to the first, and he’s gently pulling until he can really get his tongue in there. Hux jams a hand underneath himself so he can wrap his fist around his cock. He is hard again, and he aches, and it’s awful, and if Kylo doesn’t _get on with it_ , he’s going to kick him in the head for real this time.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” Kylo says, stopping so he can see what Hux is doing. “Can you get off like this?”

Hux is overheated and his legs won’t stop shaking, but he’s too turned on to be humiliated. “Stop talking,” he manages to say, “and find out.”

He’s got his face pressed into the sheets, so he doesn’t know what expression Kylo is making, but he can feel how pleased Kylo is. “Tell me if you want something different,” Kylo says, more thoughtful than several of Hux’s previous unpaid partners, and gets his mouth back onto Hux. 

Hux wasn’t expecting Kylo Ren to be a generous lover, but he’d also not expected him to be young and handsome either, so it might be time to stop making assumptions about his co-commander.

Hux arches his back until he’s got his weight on his knees and one shoulder, giving himself room to move his hand. He’s too sensitive to really stroke his cock, but it feels good in his fist. The pressure helps.

Kylo changes the angle he’s holding Hux open at, and starts massaging his perineum again. Hux pushes his face into the mattress so he doesn’t scream. He can’t stop the way his hips keep jerking, not sure if he’s trying to get away, or push back into it. It’s maddening, he can’t quite get there, stuck on the cusp of orgasm, eyes screwed shut, toes clenched, his body strung as tight as a tripwire.

Maybe he’s reading Hux’s mind, or maybe he’s just offensively good in bed, but Kylo doesn’t wait for Hux to figure out what he needs. He slides two long fingers into Hux, tongue on the stretched, aching rim of Hux’s hole. Hux is so close, and then Kylo pushes against his prostate from the outside at the same time he rubs from the inside, and Hux comes so hard it almost feels like pain. 

He’s barely collapsed flat when Kylo gets up on his knees and jerks himself off onto him. Hux can feel warm lines of come landing on his lower back and his ass. It drips down over his hole and Hux starts to laugh, too fucked out to stop it. At least Kylo didn't destroy any fixtures this time.

“We are not getting into a never-ending loop, no matter how messy I am,” Hux says, so Kylo doesn’t think he’s laughing at him. “I'm using your sonic. Don’t even think about starting up again.” 

Kylo flops down next to him. “I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh before,” he says, even though Hux is certain he must have done, they’ve been spending enough time together.

Hux grumbles a little but doesn’t really complain when Kylo uses the sheet to wipe the majority of the ejaculate off them both, then drags Hux across the bed until they’re both on their sides, Kylo’s bicep under his head in lieu of a pillow, legs tangled together. 

“You said you’re on your rest cycle,” Kylo says, kicking at the blanket until he can grab it with his toes and pull it up, like he's forgotten he could move it with his mind. “Have a sonic later.” He doesn't bother to put more than a corner of the blanket over himself, probably because he's still putting out the same amount of heat as a small sun, but he tucks the blanket around Hux before he can get cold.

“I’m not an idiot, I can see you trying to figure out if we can both fit in together.” Hux smothers a yawn. “We can’t. Not with your shoulders. And besides, I still need to berate you for running your mouth to Snoke. We don't have time for both." 

"You're awful," Kylo says cheerily, pulling the tie out of his hair and tossing it in the general direction of the drawer. He’s back to his usual mid-world accent again.

With the vocoder it was impossible to know for sure, but Hux had been almost certain Kylo code-switched on occasion, and he was right. He’d be tempted to assume that Kylo’s usual speech is an affectation, but Hux has heard enough people trying to sound more refined than they actually are to spot that sort of pretension a mile away. Both the bland, upper-middle world and the ‘man you met in a port bar who is of dubious character’ accents are natural to Kylo, as different as they are. Hux files that information away for later.

"I’m serious,” Hux says, even as he cards his fingers through Kylo’s sweaty hair. It's very thick, and very soft. “Snoke was deeply unhappy to think we might be conspiring behind his back. I had to reassure him, from my knees, that I had no intention of doing anything without his approval."

Kylo is a lot like Millicent in the way that he practically turns into a liquid when someone’s petting him. "I never suggested we were conspiring," he mumbles.

"Shush," Hux says. "I'm admonishing you."

"I don't like being scolded."

"I don't like being forced to kneel," Hux says, "or grovelling for my life. The universe is disappointing like that. Next time you feel the need to tell Snoke about our conversations, don’t."

“Are you talking about your plans to win the war? Of course I mentioned them. I thought maybe if I reminded him that you have solid strategies, he might revisit them,” Kylo says, because he’s an imbecile who thinks Snoke would ever want someone else’s opinion.

“Apparently, to Snoke, it sounded like I was making a power grab. In future, don’t talk to him about me, or about anything to do with me. If he asks, keep it brief. Especially do not mention any of this,” Hux waves a hand in a way that’s meant to encompass them, together.

Kylo sighs. “Yeah,” he says glumly. "I don't think he wanted us to be friends."

In no way would Hux consider them to be friends. “Don’t get emotional,” Hux says, disgruntled. He really does need to have a sonic now. They both do. Sonic, then go back to his quarters, do some paperwork and, if all goes well, get at least four hours of sleep.

“You could stay,” Kylo says. “If you want. Sleep here, use my sonic in the morning." He sounds hopeful.

It’s a bad idea. It was a bad idea for them to do this in the first place. But now Kylo is looking at Hux with an expression that says he’s waiting to be pushed away, and Hux isn’t used to it. For years, Kylo has been looking at Hux with _expressions_. They were hidden and it didn’t matter but now it’s all just out there, in the open. It’s not safe, Hux thinks, although he’s not entirely sure who or what isn’t safe, or from what.

It would be gauche, Hux thinks, to insist on leaving after taking someone’s virginity. Especially since Kylo has explicitly asked him to stay. And Hux is tired. He’s always tired, but after two orgasms the thought of standing up long enough to even get to the sonic sounds repellant. And Kylo is very warm. Warm enough that Hux’s feet aren’t getting cold, so long as he keeps them tucked up against Kylo’s legs.

“If you snore I’m out,” Hux says.

Kylo does a very poor job of keeping a straight face. His eyes are all crinkled up at the corners. Any fool could see he's trying not to smile, as if Hux is going to be scared off if he does.

“I don’t snore,” Kylo promises. Hux highly doubts he has anyone in his life to tell him if he snores or not. “You want some tea? I’m going to make tea.”

It’s a little disgusting how much energy Kylo has. He fairly bounces out of the bed, radiating happiness in the way that he usually has an aura of barely leashed rage. Hux watches through the open door as Kylo wanders in and out of his line of sight, stopping to pull his meditation trousers on again before he sets an old-fashioned kettle to boil on a hot plate.

“Why don’t you just dispense hot water?” Hux asks. Kylo has a dispenser, all officer quarters do. Even trooper barracks have water dispensers.

“You can’t make tea like that!” Kylo says, as scandalized as Hux might be if someone suggested he show up on the bridge in nothing but his underwear.

When Kylo turns to check on the water, Hux is treated to a view of the scratches he hadn’t realized he’d left all over Kylo’s shoulders. Kylo notices him looking and twists to see what’s so interesting. When he catches sight of the long red marks, he flexes his back and winks at Hux.

Hux doesn’t find it attractive to be winked at, like he’s some woman of negotiable affection in a seedy tap room. He doesn’t. It is not attractive, and he refuses to admit it’s attractive.

While the tea steeps in an incongruously charming little teapot, Kylo putters around, tidying up the pieces of his shattered light fixtures instead of just summoning a cleaning droid, and picking up Hux’s clothes. He goes to toss the clothes onto a chair, but stops to shake the uniform out and drape it nicely over the back, instead of just leaving it in a pile to get all wrinkled. There’s something weirdly well-mannered about it. As though, at some point in his life, someone taught him to pick up after himself, and how to treat a guest. Hux needs to start a list somewhere. He’s going to lose track of all the strange details that make up Kylo Ren. Hux presses his face into the pillow and groans. Nothing makes sense.

The tea smells truly awful and Hux isn’t convinced it’s fit for human consumption, so Kylo brings him water instead. His revolting brew is in a camping thermos and the water is in a dented First Order cup from the mess. Hux realizes Kylo must not have more than one cup.

“Thank you,” he says, falling back on his own manners because he feels oddly adrift, sitting in bed with Kylo, shoulder to shoulder.

Hux wakes up barely half an hour before the start of his shift because his chrono is in his quarters and he didn't think to ask Kylo to use his. The only reason he has even that meagre amount of time is because Kylo apparently thought waking Hux up with a handjob was a good idea. 

It's certainly not the worst idea Kylo has ever had. He's very good with his hands.

Hux has to have the fastest sonic known to man, dash back to his own quarters, throw on a clean uniform, and inhale a scalding cup of caf and a stim in record time. He's not late to his shift, but he makes it by seconds.

Despite the rocky start to his day, Hux finds that he's in a good mood. After some quick mental calculations, he realizes it’s been nearly a year since he last had real shore leave, and figures that’s probably why. His early encounters with Kylo were pleasant enough, but there’s nothing quite like getting naked with another person. 

His first task of the day is a holocall with one of his least-favourite fellow generals. Hux drinks a fresh cup of caf and takes great pleasure in verbally eviscerating him face to face.

Jenji gives him an arch look when the call is over. “You’re unusually cheerful,” she says.

“Perhaps I woke up on the right side of the bed,” Hux says.

“Push the other side of your bed against the wall,” she says. “Get out on this one more often.”

He should probably reprimand her for speaking to him like that. He doesn’t. 

Hux finishes his shift, spends some time in the gym with Phasma getting kicked up and down the sparring mats, and then goes back to his quarters, still feeling better than he has in a while. It’s a little embarrassing how much one night with someone else has improved his mood. He shouldn't leave it so long next time; humans aren’t meant to be so solitary.

Hux discovers that Kylo has let himself into his quarters, without so much as a by your leave, and even that doesn’t entirely dampen his good humour. It’s difficult to be annoyed at someone for letting themselves in without permission, when you were only just thinking about the fantastic orgasm they gave you. 

It's also difficult to be annoyed because Kylo is on his hands and knees on the floor, trying to coax Millicent out from under the couch. He looks just as young and strikingly handsome as he did before. And he looks good on his knees.

"She’s mad at me,” Kylo says.

“The last time you were here you attacked me. And, worse, you’ve taken off your face.” Hux glances at where Kylo’s helmet sits on his table. “She needs to adjust.” 

Millicent isn’t the only one having trouble with it, Hux thinks. It’s still a shock to see Kylo without the mask. Moreso now that he’s in the rest of his usual getup and there’s less difference between the Kylo who has soft hair, and lost his viginity fucking Hux through the mattress, and the Kylo who can crush a throat from across the room and rip the thoughts from someone else’s mind.

Kylo gets up, absently dusting off the knees of his trousers. “You’re thinking about me,” he says, speaking of reading minds.

Hux glares at him. “Stay out of my head.”

“I’m not—” Kylo starts to snap back but then he frowns, reigning in his temper. “I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking, because I’m trying to give you privacy.”

“In my own head.”

“You have no idea how hard it is!”

Hux takes off his command cap and puts it away, sighing into the depths of his closet. “How terrible for you,” he says. “Having to exert a little control.” He’s still not annoyed though. Kylo’s outburst is helping reconcile his two images into one. “I was thinking about last night,” he says, cutting Kylo off.

“Yeah?” Kylo goes from angry to cautiously pleased, like a plasma cannon powering down. 

The way he looks at Hux has always been intense, but Hux is realizing that his intensity doesn't always equate to anger. Kylo simply operates at an eleven on a ten-point system at all times. How someone can do so much meditation and achieve exactly no calm, Hux will never know.

“Yes.” Hux doesn’t elaborate. “Why are you in my quarters?”

Kylo starts pacing around the room in tight circles. Now he’s agitated. It’s hard to keep up with his mood swings.

Hux doesn’t have anything pressing planned for the rest of the evening. He can wait. Hux shrugs off his coat and hangs it up. He has a high tolerance for uncomfortable silences, and Kylo does not. Sure enough, it only takes another few turns around the room before Kylo comes to a stop. 

“There was an incident.” 

Of course there was. At least Kylo came to him instead of waiting for Hux to read it in a report. They’re still making progress. “What did you do?” Hux says, trying not to sound too judgemental.

“The simulator in training room eight,” Kylo says. “It’s completely fried.”

“Why did you break the simulator?” Hux asks, because he doubts the simulator fried itself. 

“I wasn't trying to!” Kylo says, scraping his hands through his hair. “I’ve used the Force on it before and never had any problems, but this time I took out one projection and the whole thing died.”

That's actually quite interesting. Hux knew some of the simulators had been modified for Kylo, but he hasn’t had a look at the code or the physical mechanisms, so he’s not clear on the details.

“I’m supposed to have better control than that.”

“If you want further commentary on that subject, I’d be happy to oblige you,” Hux says. “However—”

“The processor burst into flames,” Kylo says flatly.

Even more interesting. “Sounds like a surge to me.”

“A surge?” Kylo shakes his head, but he’s not saying no.

Hux sits down so he can take his boots off. “Assuming your witchery follows the same rules of quantum mechanics as everything else, yes. The most likely reason for simulator eight’s untimely demise is because you threw too much power at it. Exactly like an electrical surge. A similar thing happened when we introduced vibro-weaponry into the programming six years ago and it overloaded. The system will need to be tweaked, but it’s not something to get excited about. Consider yourself absolved.” 

He sets his boots down, toes against the wall. What Hux really wants to do is change out of his uniform into his off-duty regs, but he supposes that will have to wait until he’s talked Kylo off this particular ledge. At least there wasn’t really an incident. It could even be considered an opportunity; might as well expand the training programs for the troopers while they’re fixing it.

Being let off the hook for destroying First Order property isn’t making Kylo any happier. “Eight is supposed to be able to take more than I’m capable of throwing at it. It’s programmed to exceed my abilities,” he says.

Hux raises his eyebrows. “I’m still not seeing a problem. Congratulations, you can bench more weight than you thought you could. I’ll have the simulator adjusted for you.”

Kylo looks immensely torn. “I should tell Snoke,” he says, but doesn’t make any move to put his helmet back on. The lines of his profile are striking.

Hux ought to encourage Kylo to keep coming to him with problems before they can blow out of proportion. Positive reinforcement is important. 

“Before you do that," Hux says, "would you like to have sex again?’

“Really?”

“Yes, Kylo, really," he says with minimal impatience.

“...I thought of something I want to try, if you’re up for it,” Kylo says.

They have to move to the bedroom because Millicent attacks Kylo when he kisses Hux, but it turns out that Kylo is strong enough to fuck Hux up against the wall, with Hux’s legs around his waist. Also, Hux finds it much less annoying being picked up if he’s also being fucked within an inch of his life at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Kylo initiates a second round of sex, without asking first. Hux explicitly says no and although he almost immediately changes his mind, Kylo doesn’t really stop between being told no and being told yes. He later wakes Hux up with a handjob, without any discussion about if that sort of thing is okay. Again, Hux doesn’t mind, but prior consent does not imply future consent.
> 
> NOTES:  
> Could Kylo actually get his hands around Hux's waist? According to my very scientific research, Adam Driver's hands are the size of his own head (seriously they're huge); it looks like he could get them around Daisy Ridley, and she and Domhnall Gleeson don’t seem so very different in circumference; and, most importantly, neither Kylo nor Hux are real. In conclusion: Hux is thin as a slip of paper and Kylo is a goddamn brick shithouse with very big hands. So, sure. He can get his hands all the way around.
> 
> As an aside, I only recently saw TRoS and when Kylo/Ben picks up Rey to cradle her body, the actual words that came out of my mouth, out loud, were “Jesus, he’s a big lad.” And that was pretty much all I took away from that scene.
> 
> The average human penis size, on Earth, in the Milky Way, is 12-16cm (4.7-6.2in) when erect, according to a number of studies done on the topic. In case you were curious. Is that the GFFA, Arkanis average? That's up to you to decide.
> 
> I know that according to the extended canon Hux is a tea drinker, and lbh that man is one pith helmet away from invading India, but you’re telling me Hux doesn’t have a crippling coffee addiction? Not a chance. 
> 
> And, finally, I just enjoy the idea of Kylo drinking some weird leaf-based beverage that Chewbacca introduced him to, and everyone’s like, “You know that’s not really for humans, right?” and Kylo’s like, “Puts hair on your chest.” And since it’s not actively poisonous, he’s gonna keep drinking it. Although, he still doesn't have much chest hair...
> 
> “Woman of negotiable affection” is lovingly and shamelessly borrowed from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.


	4. The One Mistake

There are plenty of reasons why Hux shouldn’t keep sleeping with Kylo. However, despite his myriad other flaws, Kylo is extremely good in bed, and they’re very sexually compatible. 

So they carry on, and they keep carrying on.

They fuck when Hux is off shift, and in his office when he's supposed to be working. They fuck in empty conference rooms, in training room eight, on the shuttle down to Ilum (although Kylo refuses to have sex on the base there for reasons Hux didn't ask about because he doesn't care), and on just about every surface in both of their quarters. Hux hasn't had the luxury of a regular partner since he was a lieutenant, and it’s never been quite so...passionate, he supposes is one way to describe it. He's honestly shocked neither of them has had to go to medical for chafing.

Millicent stops trying to attack Kylo whenever she sees him, and finally, grudgingly, condescends to sitting on him, and allowing him to pet her again. Kylo continues to take on ops tasks, and starts an underground home-brew bot fighting ring with Stabby Jr’s troopers that Hux has to pretend not to know about. Kylo is still touchy and easily frustrated, but the more he succeeds in his new duties, the bigger the gap between a setback and a catastrophic emotional meltdown becomes. 

It’s not surprising to Hux that regular sex improves Kylo's disposition since he has the libido of a bantha in rut. Adding that sort of tension to his boredom and loneliness was asking for trouble. Now he’s not so bored, and he has to talk to other people on _Finalizer_ in order to do the work he’s taken on, so he’s not so lonely. 

Whatever Kylo's history, whatever hurt was done to him, Hux is hopeful that it will never have to be addressed.

In fact, things are going so well that the catastrophic meltdowns all but stop. Hux was right: now that Kylo has things to keep him busy, he doesn’t have nearly as much time to sit around driving himself crazy. 

Hux is getting the impression that, sometimes, when Kylo is meditating, what he's actually doing isn't clearing his mind but is, instead, ruminating on anything negative and deliberately upsetting. Those sessions slowly decrease in number, until nine times out of ten, when Kylo is angry there’s a reason for it, and he’s able to get his aggression out in the training rooms. What can’t be worked out through exercise, inevitably leads to sex. Hux develops a certain fondness for catching the tail wind of Kylo’s temper; Kylo is at his most desperate to please when he’s feeling insecure, and the majority of his anger originates from a nearly bottomless well of insecurity. 

He thinks it might be cathartic for Kylo, having someone who isn’t impressed by his tantrums. He’s begging for a firm hand, and Hux is happy to provide one. It’s not exactly difficult to use what he knows of Kylo to drag him to his knees and make him crawl. Mostly metaphorically. Occasionally literally.

Hux discovers he’s got an enormous capacity for mercy, at least where Kylo is concerned. He puts Kylo in his place, and then lets him earn forgiveness for his behaviour. Kylo fights it, he can’t help himself, but every time they play those games, he goes down a little easier. He’s always so grateful afterwards, so solicitous and worried he might have accidentally hurt Hux. But in the end he’s reassured—he hasn’t lost control, he was able to do what was demanded of him, someone took the time to make him be better and stuck around afterwards to see it through—and that well of insecurity gets a little less deep.

Hux tells himself that they’re very sexually compatible. It’s not about Kylo’s crippled sense of self-worth and need to have a space to let go where he doesn’t have to be afraid of himself. It’s certainly not about Hux’s compulsive need to control everything. 

It’s a little bit about that. 

Hux relieves Kylo of the last shreds of his virginity about three months after they first go to bed together. He puts Kylo on his back and isn't kind about making him take his cock all the way in one push. Hux pulls Kylo's hair hard enough that his eyes water and watches his cock leak all over his stomach because of it. Hux tells Kylo the only way he's getting off is if he can get there on Hux's dick. He makes Kylo beg for it, and, afterwards, he doesn’t mention it when Kylo cries, just lets him hide his face in the pillows and strokes his back until he stops.

“I liked it,” Kylo says, muffled and a little stuffed up.

“I know,” Hux says. “It just takes some people that way. It’ll stop.”

"You’re like a black hole." Kylo finally lifts his head to look at Hux. Even when he’s red-eyed from crying he’s still annoyingly attractive. "There's no light in you. But you're good to me. I don’t know why.”

"You wretch," Hux says, fondly. Kylo isn't the only one who liked it. And Hux is feeling generous. "Of course I am. You're magnificent, and monstrous, and mine." He sighs when Kylo’s eyes well up again. “Alright, tell me what the difference is between light and dark. If you’re going to keep wittering on about the Force I might as well understand what you’re talking about.”

“You hate hearing about the Force,” Kylo says, but he’s looking a lot less like he’s going to weep all over Hux again.

“I’m as dismayed as you are,” Hux says. “Just the basics, thank you.”

Kylo gets comfortable, propped up on one elbow, instead of huddled against Hux. "The Force is in everything," he says and pauses to rub his cheek on his shoulder to scrub away lingering tears. "It’s a building block of the universe.”

“If you tell me everything has a soul then I’m going to smother you to death with a pillow,” Hux says. 

Kylo huffs, a little bit of a laugh. “That’s not how it works. It’s just part of everything, it is everything. Like energy. My connection to the Force means I can see it—feel it, manipulate it. It’s hard to describe.” He quirks his fingers and Hux’s ident tags lift up off his chest, suspended in the air for a moment before Kylo lets them drop again.

Hux touches the tags, the metal is body-warm, and the fact that Kylo can move them without touching them is still, to Hux, magic.

“It’s not magic,” Kylo says, because he’s a snoop as well as a witch. “It’s like any skill. Some people are naturally gifted, but training increases ability, control, and power. My mother’s Force-sensitive.” He presses his lips together like he can take it back.

Never, not once, has Kylo ever let slip any detail about his parents. He’s comfortable now talking about courtesy relatives and Jedi training, but never anything about his parents. Hux doesn’t even know if either of them are alive. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Hux says.

Kylo shakes his head. “I’ve seen…I’ve taken things from you. I did it so I could hurt you, and then I did it because I was curious, and then sometimes because I couldn’t help it. But I know. I know what the Commandant did to you." 

Kylo has never once mentioned the scars Hux carries that aren't from combat. Kylo isn’t blind, he must know what they are. Not very many things leave such parallel marks, other than a belt. But he never said a word. Hux had been grateful; a little resentful about that gratitude, but still.

Kylo says, "I know what you did to the Commandant.”

Barely a year has passed since Brendol Hux dissolved in bacta. No one knows—no one can _prove_ —for sure what happened. Only Hux, Phasma, and now, apparently, Kylo, know exactly why Brendol died the way he did.

“I never touched him,” Hux says, for plausible deniability.

"Fuck him, he deserved it,” Kylo says, with venomous finality. “The point is, I took it and I want to give you something in return.” Kylo takes a deep breath and then says, “My mother is Force-sensitive. Her brother and her father both trained, but she never did, and I never found out how strong she could have been if she’d taken that path.”

Hux runs his palm up and down Kylo’s broad back to encourage him. “I’m guessing you weren’t able to make that choice.” 

“I couldn’t control my abilities,” Kylo agrees. “That’s partly why I got packed off to train as a Jedi.”

“Shocking,” Hux says.

Kylo kicks at his shin but there’s an expression of gratitude on his face. “Some of what I can do is just because I was born like this. Force-sensitivity runs in families and my connection is stronger than most, but there’s only so much anyone can achieve without training in the light or the dark.”

“…Right,” Hux says. “See, this is where you lose me. It’s a universal energy with _sides_.”

“It’s about emotion,” Kylo says. “You connect to the Force through your emotions.”

Hux stares at the ceiling and thinks truly vile things about the Force. “Of course you do. Fine, you connect through your emotions,” he says with exactly as much scorn as that idiocy deserves. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Kylo nips at his ear. “The light requires you to purge them, the dark demands you give in to them. Don’t be a dick, you asked. Some things can only be learned or accessed one way or the other. So, the light and the dark. And each path, each way of connecting requires you to do, or not do, certain things.”

“I’m assuming their particular style of connection was why the Jedi were celibate,” Hux says thoughtfully. “Interesting. So what is it you’re supposed to be doing? Obviously the dark allows one to take lovers." 

Hux immediately wishes he hadn't said that because Kylo looks at him with so much longing that Hux can practically taste it.

"No," Kylo says. “No one allows that.”

Hux needs to get them away from the moment. He didn’t mean it like that. "I suppose a casual liaison with one's colleague is acceptable," Hux says.

"Yeah, that's okay," Kylo says gratefully.

Kark it, Hux should have known Kylo would confuse fucking—or whatever it is they’re doing—with something else.

"Attachments make you weak," Kylo says, turning his face into Hux’s hair, and doing something that feels suspiciously like cuddling him. “At least, that's what the Sith believed. They didn’t care if you had sex or not, so long as you didn’t get attached. The Jedi didn’t allow any of it because all things are supposed to be equal. I guess they knew people would find that hard to do, so they just tried to make everyone be celibate. With limited success, but they tried."

Stars, Hux hates every single thing about Force users and their traditions.

"All things are equal,” Hux says disgustedly, “what sentimental nonsense. It’s almost as stupid as expecting people not to get attached. Humans are pack animals, we’ll bond with anything. Look at Stabby Jr. for pity's sake! No wonder the Sith were either non-human, or utter lunatics and personality defects.”

Kylo draws breath to speak but Hux shushes him.

“Don’t interrupt with more nonsense, and don’t bring up Darth kriffing Vader either. I’m trying to understand, I am, but it doesn’t make sense. Human beings are capable of nuance, all this binary thinking is doing my head in. Why do you have to exist at the far ends of the continuum?"

“Some of us are born into the dark, some in the light,” Kylo says. “I’m valuable to Snoke because I’m naturally right in the middle.”

Hux has no idea what to say to that. It’s a whole new complicating factor in understanding how the Force works. He has no idea what it means to be called to one side over another, or what he’s supposed to infer from Kylo’s admittance that he’s… “By ‘in the middle’ do you mean balanced?” Hux says doubtfully.

“No. Finding balance is difficult. It doesn’t mean to be between light and dark. Balance is to be centered in one’s self.”

Of all the sentients in the galaxy that Hux has ever met, Kylo isn’t the least centered, but he’s certainly not far from that position. Kylo has his trauma unrelated to battle making him unstable, he’s got more power than control, and he knows it. All that, in turn, makes him emotional—angry, afraid, and unsure—which lessens the control, which increases the emotions, which lessens his control, ad infinitum.

Hux had imagined Kylo pulled between Skywalker and Snoke, but he sees now it runs so much deeper. If Hux is understanding it correctly, Kylo’s position between two worlds means that even as Snoke tries to develop his power in the dark, it’s not his natural state of being, just as it wasn't natural for him to be in the light as Skywalker wanted. Worse, neither side thinks it’s even possible for a Force user to simply exist there in the middle.

“It isn’t possible,” Kylo says.

“Thoughts. Reading. Don’t,” Hux reminds him. Then, “I still don’t understand. Why do you have to choose? Why can’t you just use both?”

“I don’t know,” Kylo says, so quietly that Hux can barely hear him. His breathing sounds clogged up with tears again.

Hux feels a little guilty. He’d meant to distract Kylo from getting upset over the notion of someone being kind to him, not remind him of other problems in his life. He’d thought talking about the Force might be soothing for Kylo, more fool him. Everything about Kylo is a minefield and there’s no way that Hux can safely navigate any of it. Hell, when Hux had set out to use Kylo’s trauma against him, he hadn’t considered that he would be the only person in Kylo’s life (no matter the motive) taking time to listen to him, praise him, and encourage him. He didn't think he’d be one vanishingly few sentients to hear his real voice, see his face, or touch his skin.

No wonder Kylo’s getting too attached. If he lived like Kylo, Hux might not be totally sane either. But it doesn’t matter; no matter how depressing Kylo’s life is, Hux can’t be his support. Kylo has to hold himself up.

Hux can’t bear to be cried on again so he focuses his thoughts. Kylo has a lot of pain in his life and Hux was able to give him something not everyone gets for their first times: sexual encounters he wanted, and enjoyed, and would remember fondly. Hux thinks about how good Kylo had felt under him and how pleased he was to know Kylo had liked it. He thinks about the first time Kylo fucked him, and the first time he sucked Kylo’s cock, the first time Kylo tried sucking his.

“You’ve got a dirty mind, General,” Kylo says.

“If you keep commenting on my thoughts I’m going to know you’re spying on them,” Hux says mildly.

“It’s not spying if you’re thinking at me,” Kylo complains. Then his eyes go very wide as he picks up on Hux's current projection. "Oh," he says. “And you’ll suck my cock while I do it?”

Hux smirks at him. He’s not sure he can get hard yet, but that’s not going to stop him from sitting on Kylo’s face and introducing him to the concept of mutual oral sex. "Want to give it a try?"

There’s some significant rebel activity in a sector of First Order space that is under General Mar Celwick’s command, and the fool manages to botch what should have been a simple engagement beyond comprehension. There’s nothing Hux can do, he’s busy with Starkiller and can’t go haring off across space just because someone else can’t do their job. He can, however, get dragged into a thousand holocall meetings that do nothing to repair the damaged outpost, re-start their supply chain (which the Starkiller depends on), or return to life the nearly two-hundred troopers who died in the attack.

Between that debacle, his usual duties, and one of the excavation teams on Starkiller hitting a gas pocket and blowing their primary drill to hell, he doesn’t have time for Kylo. He barely has time to choke down a stim and brush his teeth in the morning. Mercifully, Snoke sends Kylo and Praxisuh Ren to deal with Celwick, and Hux doesn’t have to have a conversation with Kylo about how, sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to screw around. No matter how much you want to.

Hux knows what usually happens when the Knights of Ren, or Kylo himself, are sent to deal with a problem. Therefore, he doesn’t pretend to be shocked during the next holocall when a woman who used to be a Lieutenant General, introduces herself as newly promoted General Vinna Horne and that she will be taking over from Celwick who is…no longer…

“Living,” Hux says impatiently. The other generals all turn to look at his holo projection. One of them has the seating chart wrong and faces an entirely different direction from everyone else. “Mar Celwick is no longer living.”

There are several disapproving looks, but only General Brius, one of his father’s old cronies (and a man on Hux’s list of people he has active plans to kill), has the nerve to reproach him. As though Hux is still some schoolboy cowering in front of his father and not a general, and a very dangerous man who commands far more power than Brendol ever did.

Hux allows himself the smallest of sneers. “The Supreme Leader does not tolerate failure, General Bruis, no matter tenure, or previous status in the fallen and disgraced Empire. What happened on Celwick’s watch was a catastrophic failure. It disrupted supplies, lost us valuable troops, and negatively impacted morale. If Celwick wanted to serve the Order, he would have done better to put a blaster in his mouth so the Knights of Ren didn’t have to waste time dealing with his ineptitude.”

Brius sputters a little but shuts up after that and the meeting is able to begin. The new general makes a good showing of herself, and doesn’t seem to be a total incompetant. She’s in her late thirties, which makes her one of the younger generals. Hux can only be grateful that some ex-Imperial didn’t get the position. The whole meeting is rather pointless, as these things go, but Hux is only listening with half an ear anyway. 

Hux spends most of the meeting crafting a seemingly innocuous message to a man he met back when they were both lieutenants on _Terminus_. Ellor Tharik is still a lieutenant, but they’ve kept in touch—if keeping in touch means sometimes they have shore leave at the same time and will spend a week fucking in some dingy little port hotel. Apart from the sex, Hux maintained that relationship for one reason alone: his message to Tharik will set off a chain of events that should, if everything goes to plan, result in the death of General Bruis within the next year. Hux spent years planning it. It’s one of his more subtle manipulations, and not only will there be no way to trace the death back to him, but most of the people involved won’t even know they played a part. The whole thing is a masterwork in human relations.

Hux signs out of the meeting feeling cheered and sends his message. He won’t know for sure that his plan is working for quite some time, but he’s optimistic. And the day continues to go his way when, later on, he gets a message from newly minted General Vinna Horne.

_General Hux,_

_Many thanks for your support at the meeting today. I’ve followed your career closely and it’s an honour to be working with you. Your speech about the personal responsibilities of command is a favourite of mine and was part of the reason I asked to be considered for promotion after Celwick’s passing. I strongly believe that with diligence, hard work, and sacrifice, we can fulfill the mission of the First Order and bring an everlasting peace to this galaxy._

_Forgive my presumption, but I worry that there are those who do not share our certitude and dedication. I hope that we might work together to elevate high command beyond petty scrabbling for power, and make the council a beacon of light we may shine into dark places to scour out the rot and depravity the New Republic has allowed to grow. It is my fervent hope that those who serve only themselves, and not the Order, will meet the fate they have earned for themselves._

_Which brings me to the reason for this communication: I would like to foster a positive working relationship with the Master of the Knights of Ren. Although he is not within our ranks, he is the Supreme Leader’s apprentice (is that correct? And is it Master Ren or Lord Ren, I don’t believe I was ever given the proper form of address. Should I be addressing him as Darth?), and an important part of the First Order. Since he is your co-commander, and the scuttlebutt says you work well together, I was hoping you might offer some insight into cultivating such a relationship._

_Although Praxisuh Ren has been happy to join us in the officer's club and does not eschew our company, Master Ren will not do the same. Admittedly, I was surprised to learn Praxisuh Ren is Rattataki but I impressed upon my crew that her non-human status should not be remarked upon, and she was treated with the respect due to her. I do not know if Master Ren is human, but, if he is not, I hope that is not the reason he wears a mask. I will not coddle the crew. They can behave appropriately amongst non-humans._

_I also worry because not only will he not remove the helmet but he also shuns all attempts at more casual conversation. I can therefore only assume that Master Ren is unsatisfied by what he finds here and I would not like to think the Supreme Leader would view us similarly. Of course, I and everyone under my command will always give our utmost to the First Order, but any additional advice would be greatly appreciated._

_Many thanks, and I look forward to working with you in the future._

_Long live the Supreme Leader,  
All hail the First Order,  
General V. Horne_

_P.S. In regards to your comment during our meeting; Unfortunately, Celwick did not take his own life before Kylo and Praxisuh Ren arrived. Master Ren seemed particularly out of temper with him and his death was subsequently less dignified than one might hope for._

Hux doesn't have a good answer for her. He can't say, "Kylo Ren is fond of small droids that try to stab his ankles, and loth-cats who shed all over his clothing. He will converse readily about homemade modifications to any kind of flying craft you can name, and he enjoys playing sabacc, although he is a terrible cheat." 

Likewise, "Pull his hair when you let him fuck you up the ass," is not useful advice.

 _General Horne,_ Hux writes, after some consideration.

_I am glad to know of your exemplary devotion to the Order. It is no secret that Celwick and I did not often agree and while I do not rejoice in his passing, I am gratified to know he has been replaced by someone worthy of the position. I will attach my private communication details at the end of this message, please feel free to reach out at any time. I also suggest getting in touch with General Duelis. He shares our vision and our great hopes, and his sector is adjacent to yours._

_As for the Master of the Knights of Ren; the Ren do not style themselves like the Sith, so neither Lord, nor Darth is correct. The correct form of address is Master of the Knights of Ren but that’s a mouthful, and he hasn’t yet objected to being called “Master Ren.” He is a private and solitary being. His refusal to socialize or eat with your crew is not a targeted insult, rather it is his preference. Keep conversation limited to vital matters, and make all efforts to hasten his departure from your ship as he has_

a very low tolerance for boredom  
a fucking terrible temper  
the charm and gentility of a rancor

_a great number of tasks to attend to. To avoid any collateral damage, restructure shifts and personnel as much as necessary to keep crewmembers away from him. I hope this proves useful, and I look forward to working with you._

_Long live the Supreme Leader,_  
All hail the First Order,  
General A. Hux 

He tells Jenji to put Horne near the top of his reply list, under Dualis and two other generals he respects, or, at least, doesn’t want dead. 

It won’t be a speedy process, but eventually the First Order generals will be people with competence, loyalty, and intelligence. If Hux has to personally see to the deaths of every self-serving, hidebound idiot first, then he will. A tiny part of him has always doubted the First Order would succeed where the Empire failed, but that was because he didn’t trust in the senior officers. Now though, there is real, vital progress happening, and Hux is able to see the shape of what things could be. They could win. They could achieve everything he’s ever dreamed of, and not just kark things up in the same way under a new banner.

Hux has barely recieved the alert that Kylo has returned to _Finalizer_ before the man himself marches into Hux’s office, locks the door, and pulls off his helmet. He’s put a row of braids in the top layer of his hair to keep it close to his scalp, but they’ve clearly been there a while and flyaways are curling out around his face. It’s also clear that he’s in an ill temper.

“Are you fucking anyone else?” Kylo demands.

"I beg your pardon?" Hux says, saving the file he's working on. He very much doubts he’s going to get anything accomplished for the foreseeable future.

“Are you fucking anyone else?” Kylo says, stalking across the room to loom over Hux.

Hux leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. “Not presently, no. Just you. Is there a reason for this outburst?”

“Praxi—It doesn’t matter.” Kylo puts his hand on the back of the chair, blocking Hux in. "I’m not going to share you.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Hux says. “So you told Praxisuh Ren about our little arrangement, and she what? Suggested that, as an agent of the First Order, I’m untrustworthy, unworthy, and probably screwing half the fleet behind your back?” Hux has known for a while that several of the Knights of Ren have very low opinions of the First Order, or really, anyone who doesn’t have the Force. Praxisuh is one of them.

“No,” Kylo says, but he obviously means yes. 

Hux gives him a flat and unimpressed sort of stare, one eyebrow threatening to rise. “It must have been on the way there, because I’m told you were out of temper when you arrived and eager to leave. Was she very graphic or did you manage to conjure up a few scenarios on your own?”

“Are you trying to make me angry?” Kylo says. His grip tightens on the chair, so much that Hux can hear the backrest creaking under the strain.

“Try? Please,” Hux says derisively. “You’re already there.”

He’s not surprised that Kylo is the possessive and jealous type. For starters, Kylo's not exactly the poster boy for moderation. Secondly, jealousy is born from insecurity, and Kylo is extremely insecure. And, finally, when you have almost nothing, it makes sense to guard what you do have all the more closely. The Knights of Ren are nomadic, and they only keep what they can carry. Before that, Kylo was training as a Jedi, cherishing no one thing over another, unattached. All Kylo has to his name are the clothes on his back and his lightsaber. Even troopers collect little trinkets and tokens for their racks. They’re not supposed to, but it’s one of those things that only an idiot would try and enforce. 

Hux has zero tolerance for anyone trying to control him. However, he’s not above admitting he enjoys being desired so completely. It’s not healthy, and the conditioners would probably say it has something to do with his own attachment issues, but Hux has spent a lifetime turning his weaknesses into weapons. Kylo is more than welcome to twist himself up in his feelings, Hux is enjoying the view, but his behaviour will need to be checked.

“It’s genuinely concerning how bad you are at planning an offensive,” Hux says. “You’ve had several days to hone your approach, and all you’ve got is, ‘I’m not going to share you.’ That’s rubbish.”

“Don’t push me,” Kylo says, between his teeth.

“Don’t behave like an imbecile,” Hux says. “‘I’m not going to share you’ is not how one discusses turning a few scattered fucks into some kind of arrangement. Did you consider calmly asking me what I want?”

"A few scattered…" Kylo starts and then says, “I don’t care what you want," in a barely controlled snarl. Another obvious lie.

“Of course you do.” Hux leans up just enough to press a fleeting kiss to Kylo’s mouth, licking his bottom lip, and then sitting back when he tries to press into it. “Luckily for you, I’m not opposed to mutual exclusivity.”

Kylo looks wary, like he’s not sure if he should be pleased or checking for traps. “Good,” is what Kylo finally says, but Hux has clearly unsettled him. Hux has the sneaking suspicion that, despite his position and his power, Kylo isn’t used to getting what he wants without having to use at least the threat of violence. To have his anger rebuked but his demands still met must be very confusing for him.

Hux uncrosses his legs and slides his chair away, physically unbalancing Kylo as well when he has to let go of the backrest. “You’re welcome,” Hux says pointedly.

Kylo is graceful for a man of his size and build. He sinks down to the floor with an ease that Hux himself couldn’t manage. “Thank you,” Kylo says, looking confused, but whatever emotional convolutions he’s putting himself through, he’s already opening up Hux’s uniform, eagerly lifting his cock free of his briefs and jodhpurs.

Kylo’s hand is so wide it nearly holds all of Hux, just the very end of his cock sticking out. Kylo licks at the head before wrapping his lips around it, trying to get more of it into his mouth. He doesn’t get very far before Hux can feel his throat working. 

“Slowly,” Hux warns him. “If I wanted to make you choke, I’d tie you to a bed and fuck your face.”

Kylo moans, eyes closing. This is one of the few things they do that he’s not very good at. None of his mystic meditation breathing exercises seem to help at all. He has a gag reflex as touchy as his temper and he’s impatient. Not a great combination. But he does seem to enjoy having a dick in his mouth.

“Do you like that idea? Put your tongue out,” Hux says, “there you go.” He digs his fingers into Kylo’s braids, intending to use his grip to control the pace of things, but Kylo’s hair is unpleasantly greasy. 

"You need to wash your hair," Hux says.

Kylo looks up at him, and takes Hux’s cock out of his mouth. “Seriously?” he says. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

“You want me to talk?” Hux says. He’s already touching Kylo’s hair, so he figures he might as well just go with it, guiding Kylo down on his dick until Kylo's eyes tear up and he gags. “I could make it easy for you, let you do it with your head tipped back. With that angle I could just fuck right into you.”

He pulls Kylo back, rubbing his cock over his tongue while Kylo recovers. The second Kylo stops coughing, Hux feeds his cock back into Kylo's mouth until his throat convulses. 

"Breathe through your nose,” Hux says, even though there’s not a chance that’s going to happen. Kylo gags and keeps gagging, his body curling up desperately until Hux takes mercy and pushes him away. 

Kylo puts his hands on the floor, head down, and spits out a thick wad of saliva and precome. 

Hux tsks at him. “You really aren’t doing a good job,” Hux says.

“Pfassk off,” Kylo says and coughs up another long string of drool.

“That’s not very nice,” Hux says, and gently tugs him back. “I know you can do better. I don’t think you’re trying.”

Kylo scowls at him, determined, and gets back on Hux’s dick. Hux keeps his hips still, letting Kylo work his tongue over the little he has in his mouth. He keeps mistiming his breathing so he has to stop and lick at the head of Hux’s cock while he tries to catch his breath. Even like this, Kylo is sloppy, saliva dripping down his chin. He is trying, Hux can tell, because he gets the same sort of serious expression on his face that he does when he’s training.

“That’s better,” Hux says, even though it isn't really. But the encouragement makes Kylo flush and redouble his efforts.

For a while, Hux lets Kylo do his best without any real effort on his own part. Eventually he tightens his grip in Kylo’s hair again. He does have to get back to work and can’t spend all day with Kylo’s head between his thighs, as pleasant as that would be.

“Alright,” Hux says. “Just relax.”

Kylo blinks at him, teary, and then closes his eyes. Hux can get away with fucking his mouth for maybe a minute before Kylo will lose the battle with his gag reflex and have to stop and choke up spit and precome again. But having Kylo at his feet, trying so hard for him, while Hux stuffs his mouth full of cock—it’s a different sort of pleasure from a blowjob that’s actually good, but it’s still pleasure.

Hux comes in Kylo’s mouth. Not very kind of him, but he likes the way Kylo tries to swallow, and chokes, and fails, and keeps trying.

Hux relaxes back in his chair, catching his breath, while Kylo pulls himself together. Sometimes just getting Hux off is enough to trigger Kylo’s orgasm; some sort of Force-feedback thing, Hux gathers. It’s hard to tell in the robes though.

“Did you need a hand?” Hux asks, tucking himself back into his trousers and straightening his clothes.

Kylo shakes his head, still coughing. “Later,” he says, hoarsely. 

The tension he’d barged into Hux’s office with is gone. There’s come on his face, and he’s a mess, just an absolute disaster of a man. Hux wants to kiss him. He doesn’t.

”You do need to wash your hair though,” Hux says.

Kylo clears his throat a final time and sits back on his heels. “You’re a piece of work," Kylo says affectionately. "No pleasantries, no ‘Welcome back, Kylo. How was the mission? Thank you for your service to the Order. Good job swallowing this time.’"

"I know it went well; you don’t serve the Order, you serve Snoke; and you spit most of it all over the floor and the rest on yourself.” Hux drags his fingers through the drool and come on Kylo’s face, and holds them out for Kylo to lick clean. “I mean it, you don't bathe enough."

"I forget," Kylo says. With his hair back, Hux can see his ears go red. Good, he should be embarrassed. What adult forgets to bathe? Especially when they do as much physical training as Kylo does.

"I don't take my helmet off when I'm on a job like that." Kylo wipes his mouth and chin with the inside of his cowl and then leans against Hux's knee, making no effort to get up. "Or my clothes. You’re the only one who sees me this way, except for the Knights, and they don’t care. So I forget.”

"Why?" Hux says at last. If Kylo doesn't take the helmet off then not only does he not bathe, but there's no way for him to eat, either. Hux has no idea if Kylo would even have a way to hydrate other than an intravenous drip. “Why leave it on?” 

"Don't want anyone to know…" Kylo gestures vaguely at himself. "Not my face, not my species, nothing. Better to be a shadow. If the job isn't too long, I meditate instead of sleeping."

Hux can't believe he's being made to feel sorry for Kylo. 

He doesn't mean to keep comparing Kylo's lifestyle to a trooper's, but he can't help it. Stormtroopers have people who care if they’re dirty or tired. They're provided with rations and water and given opportunities to eat and drink. They don't sleep in their helmets. They sleep, full stop. This is supposed to be a regime of order, and discipline. All who serve it should be provided for. No one should be locked in armour for days at a time with no rest or ability to care for their most basic needs. It's inhumane.

Because Hux is a better man than others might give him credit for, he begins undoing the braids in Kylo's hair, finger-combing it out.

Kylo blinks up at him. "You just said—"

Hux shushes him and Kylo relaxes, head heavy on Hux's thigh. He sits quietly while Hux takes his hair down and scratches his fingernails against his scalp. It's not the most pleasant feeling from Hux’s end. He doesn't want to think about the amount of dead skin under his nails, but Kylo has his eyes shut, and he's practically boneless with pleasure, heavy against Hux's leg.

"What you’re doing isn’t sustainable," Hux says softly. "Let me come up with a strategy to introduce you to the First Order without the helmet. It's not healthy to leave it on for so long."

"Darth Vader did," Kylo mumbles.

"Darth Vader was a cyborg who required his suit to live. You are a fully flesh-and-blood human being who needs to be able to breathe freely, and sleep, and keep himself clean." Hux smooths his thumb over Kylo's temple and back into his hair. "I think we can aim a little higher than Darth Vader."

Kylo frowns, but doesn't open his eyes. "He was a powerful Sith Lord who—"

"Don’t start," Hux interrupts. "I know you think you're his spiritual successor, but you're selling yourself short. You have the opportunity to learn from history, and Darth Vader, powerful Sith Lord or not, is not a man to model yourself after. He killed one of the most fascinating politicians I've ever studied, changed sides twice, and in doing so almost single-handedly destroyed both those sides, and he was killed by your former master, who you nearly defeated as a child. We can do better."

Now Kylo does open his eyes, outraged. 

“Poor choice of words. I should have said 'destroyed both the Republic and the Empire hands-free,’ since Vader lost both of those to a Jedi as well. Settle down," Hux says, like he wasn't the one to get Kylo worked up. 

Kylo grunts, dissatisfied, but apparently the pull of Hux’s fingers in his hair is more potent than his irritation.

“Who’d he kill that you studied?” Kylo says, after a while, like a peace offering.

“How much do you know about Padmé Amidala?”

“More than most,” Kylo says. “What do you care about a Republican senator and rebel?”

Hux rubs the back of Kylo’s neck before moving up into his hair again. “She was misguided in her views, but her mastery of political theatre, her foresight, and her martial skills were, for a Queen of Naboo, wholly unexpected. Naboo likes to crown little girls because they think women are more pure and children speak without guile. The less said about that bantha-shit, the better.”

“You have no idea how strange this conversation is,” Kylo mutters.

Hux supposes it is a bit odd that he’s so fond of a leader of the rebellion against the Empire, but he’s a student of military history, and her story is one worth paying attention to. 

“In my study of her, I learned a very valuable lesson,” Hux says. “You can make one, and only one, mistake, and that will be enough to destroy you.”

“Darth Vader didn’t kill her,” Kylo says with absolute confidence. “She died giving birth to Organa and Skywalker. And Skywalker didn’t kill Vader, or Sidious, they killed each other.”

Hux is so startled he stops petting Kylo’s hair. “You sound very sure about that.”

Kylo nudges at his hand, like Millicent does, and Hux resumes scratching at his scalp. He doesn’t answer Hux’s unspoken question, which is deeply annoying.

Eventually Hux says, “It doesn’t matter. Whether Vader killed her, or giving birth to their forbidden children did the job, my conclusion remains the same. It’s not enough to be very good, you have to be consistent, and never falter.”

“Fair,” Kylo says. “It’s still strange that you studied her.” He seems like he wants to say something more, so Hux just waits. It only takes a minute until Kylo can’t stand the silence anymore and says, “What was her mistake?”

“Letting a Skywalker within a hundred klicks of her.”

Kylo makes a very strange choking sound. He sits up, eyes wide. “What?” he says.

“If we learn nothing else from the past, we should learn to avoid getting entangled with the karking Skywalkers,” Hux says. “So much history turns on one family. And, unfortunately, a family where every dalton of intelligence is restricted to the women. Stars know anyone less brilliant than Leia Organa would have been crushed by the First Order long ago. Do not repeat that to anyone, especially Snoke, or I'll have you murdered."

Kylo looks tired and sad as he gets to his feet. “Don’t talk about the Skywalkers any more,” he says. “Please.”

He leans down and kisses Hux, just a quick peck on the cheek because he hasn't brushed his teeth in days and just had a mouthful of come. He's more thoughtful than Hux would ever have suspected. At least, when he wants to be, or remembers he's a person living in a society.

Hux sighs. Kylo's sensitive, maybe he finds it upsetting to hear about his former master. Hux doesn't have to push, Kylo will tell him about it eventually.

“Very well," Hux says. "But only if you promise to stop comparing yourself to Darth Vader. And you have to let me come up with something so you don’t have to wear your helmet all the time. And take a sonic.”

“Bossy,” Kylo says. 

“You like it,” Hux says, and waves him away. “I’ll find you when I’m off-shift.”

Kylo puts the helmet back on without hesitation before he goes. He doesn't even know how horrifying he ought to find it, to be so imprisoned. Yes, he's got a kind, expressive face, but that's not an insurmountable problem, Hux can coach him on how to leverage it to his advantage.

Perhaps Kylo should simply go into battle without the helmet. The stormtrooper gossip network would make him an immediate legend. They're, of course, captivated by unmasking. To see him as human would actually prove more impressive to them. Not a droid, or a non-human, but like them, except elevated beyond anything they could imagine. They will come to the conclusion that the mask was more honest in its inhumanness, that his lovely face is the perfect deception, concealing the truth of his monstrous power. They will fear and love him. The officers won't be as easily impressed, but Hux will figure that out.

Hux is distracted by the droid that appears to clean up the mess Kylo left on the floor. It has a knife strapped to it, and someone has painted lieutenant's stripes on it.

After he gets off his shift, Hux is not surprised when he locates Kylo in his quarters, in his bed, scrubbed within an inch of his life and naked except for a sheet. 

Kylo has his hair up in a messy bun and, since he most often wears it like that when they’re fucking, Hux has begun to develop a conditioned response. Kylo puts his hair in a bun, Hux’s dick gets hard. It’s a little inconvenient, since Kylo also pulls it back when he’s training, doing his stretches, or meditating. He does those things a lot. Possibly part of the reason why they’ve been fucking so much. Either way, Kylo’s hair is up, and Hux’s cock is filling out.

Millicent is curled up on Kylo’s stomach, face pressed against his chest, over his heart. She’s snoring, and he looks like a man who wants to get up, but can’t. Hux really shouldn’t have agreed to let Kylo fuck him that first time. Now he’s finding it charming that Kylo is too soft-hearted to move a ten pound loth-cat from where she wants to sit.

Hux leans against the doorframe, appraising. “I suppose I should inform Snoke,” he says. 

He doesn’t pause too long for effect because he doesn’t want to see panic on Kylo’s face. He would panic if Kylo said, “I should inform Snoke,” without context. They both do a lot of things Snoke can never find out about. Mutually assured destruction, Hux thinks. How far they’ve come together.

“The Supreme Leader will want to know you’re a prisoner here and can’t move again until Her Majesty allows it," Hux finishes.

“She is very heavy,” Kylo says. 

“You should never mention a lady’s weight, even if she has it all directly over an internal organ,” Hux says.

“I apologize for my lack of decorum, but she’s karking up my plans,” Kylo says.

Hux has to shift his weight to accommodate his rapidly growing erection. “I suppose you’ll have to wait.”

Kylo digs his head into the pillow under him and groans. “I’ve been hard for half an hour.”

“It’s not my cat’s fault you’re a pervert,” Hux says, but he picks Millicent up and puts her on the floor. She grumbles at him, yawning, and then walks away, like getting up was her idea in the first place.

Kylo, freed, pulls Hux onto the bed, twisting so Hux is underneath him. “You’re merciless,” he says between biting kisses. “Heartless. Moving a sleeping cat, how could you? You’re the worst man in the galaxy.”

“I don’t know why I like you,” Hux mutters, not really paying attention to what he’s saying. He’s more concerned for the structural integrity of his uniform. Between his own efforts, and Kylo’s use of both his hands and the Force, to get him undressed as quickly as possible, he’s not sure the seams are all going to survive.

When Hux’s uniform is a crumpled heap on the floor, Kylo manhandles him onto his hands and knees, pushing his shoulders down until his cheek is pressed to the mattress. Hux hears the sound of lubricant on skin and then he stops caring about anything but the feeling of Kylo splitting him open.

“Oh, fuck,” Hux gasps, clawing at the sheets. “That’s your cock.”

“Yeah,” Kylo says. “Don’t worry, I got myself nice and slick for you.”

It’s been a long time since Hux got fucked without prep. He knows he can take it, but it doesn’t feel like it, and he can’t help the way he fights. He claws at the mattress and tries to crawl away but Kylo has him pinned. It’s degrading to be so easily overpowered, but Hux is so hard he aches, and he trusts Kylo not to injure him deliberately.

“I thought about you, while I was away,” Kylo says casually. “The noises you make.” He forces himself a little deeper and Hux has to press his face into the sheets to muffle the hurt-sounding moans he makes every time Kylo fucks him open a little further. “Just like that."

"Kylo, you can’t, not without—I can't…" Hux says, lifting his head up enough to speak.

"Already am. And you can. I know you like it when I’m rough with you, so you can squirm all you want, Armitage, I’ve seen your thoughts."

Hux tries desperately to relax, to open for the cock stabbing into him. "Fantasies aren't necessarily things people want to actually do," he manages to choke out.

"I can tell the difference. Don’t worry, I won’t maim myself to prove my devotion.” Kylo leans down, heavy and immovable, forcing Hux’s knees to skid out wider as he takes Kylo’s weight. “But this one you want.” 

Kylo presses his lips against Hux’s trembling back. He bites at Hux’s shoulders and neck until Hux whimpers while he works his cock into Hux in increments, pulling back just a little, then shoving back in, only a fraction deeper, and then doing it again. Hux’s hole is sore from the friction, and he’s going to be tender tomorrow, he’s going to feel it every time he moves. 

Kylo gets deep enough for the head of his cock to push roughly over Hux’s prostate. Hux jerks underneath him and Kylo breathes out heavily through his nose, sits back so he’s not on top of Hux any more, and slaps Hux’s ass hard enough to sting. 

“Force, yes, keep fucking yourself on me.” Kylo says and spanks him again, right at the crease of his thigh, right where Hux will feel it when he sits. Kylo’s hand is huge, coming down like an actual paddle for a third time, almost exactly in the same place.

Hux blinks sweat out of his eyes and manages to turn his head enough to see Kylo out of his peripheral vision. “Is this payback for earlier?” Hux says.

Kylo stops trying to get any deeper, he just moves his cock back and forth right over Hux’s prostate. Hux buries his face into the mattress again, moaning. He can’t stop clenching on Kylo’s cock, trying to stop the intrusion and get one second of relief for his raw, aching hole. It makes it so much worse. Kylo feels enormous inside him, merciless and brutal, and so fucking good that Hux’s breath hiccups.

“Nah, I like blowing you.” Kylo’s not as nonchalant now, voice dropped low with arousal, and he’s breathing hard. “But I've been planning this for several days.” Kylo fucks him with longer strokes, pushing the rest of his cock in so Hux’s body is forced to give way around him. 

The friction and drag is almost at the point where discomfort stops being added spice and starts becoming actual pain when Kylo pulls out completely and pours more lube over his cock. He even stops to finger some into Hux, now that he’s already mostly open.

Hux, given a little break, is able to put more than two thoughts together, and realizes Kylo must have been skimming his mind the entire time. He knows exactly how much Hux can take because he’s been checking for real pain, or a real desire to stop. He pulled this fantasy out of Hux and has worked diligently to keep it rough enough to push his limits, but not so much that it stops being fun. This demonstration of his value had been his strategy to ensure exclusivity from Hux, not his ill-conceived speech about an unwillingness to share.

Kylo’s cock slides back into him much more smoothly with the added lubricant. It’s still one hell of a stretch, but Hux is ready now. He tilts his pelvis so Kylo goes deeper than he meant to, startled into a groan of pleasure.

Hux twists his upper body so he can see Kylo properly. “You poor, wretched creature,” Hux says, panting. “Praxisuh Ren made you crazy over something that didn’t even happen, and you’re still trying to prove you’re better than… whatever you imagined.” He widens his eyes, and says sarcastically, in a breathy, high voice, “Oh, Kylo, you’ve ruined me for anyone else! I’ll never find anyone like you!”

Kylo grins at Hux. He looks slightly unhinged. “There isn’t anyone like me. But go ahead, baby, I like your slutty little sex voice. Tell me how much you want it.”

Of the two of them, Hux is much harder to shock, but he can feel his face going bright red. Kylo’s big hands wrap around his elbows and he pulls Hux’s arms back, so he only has Kylo holding onto him to keep him from getting shoved face-first into the bed. Hux squirms, pulling, testing Kylo’s hold, but his arms barely move at all. Kylo uses his grip, newfound leverage, and every pound of muscle he’s got on Hux to haul him back onto his cock in a move that makes Hux moan loudly, one foot kicking against the sheets.

Hux tries to talk, hiccups again, and only manages to say, “Please,” in a voice that’s humiliatingly close to the put-on one he was using before.

“I can start,” Kylo says. “You already know I want it, but I could tell you about the way your ass bounces every time I fill you up.” He punctuates this with a hard thrust that makes his hips smack against Hux’s ass with a slapping sound. 

Hux is mortified to realize he can feel the movement in the scant flesh of his cheeks. Kylo does it again, and Hux groans, embarrassed. 

“Don’t be like that, it looks great from here,” Kylo says. “Or how about—I had another plan. I thought about coming back here and using the Force to make you do what I wanted. I could make sure you never touch anyone else ever again.”

Gida Ren can make someone do just about anything. Hux has seen her work and, frankly, her ability to slip into someone's head and change their thoughts without them noticing is much more frightening in its insidiousness than Kylo's blunt telepathy, no matter how he weaponizes it. Maybe Kylo can be subtle enough to convince rather than compel, but Hux hasn't seen any evidence of that, and he’s never seen one of Kylo’s compulsions last longer than a minute or two whereas Gida’s manipulations can last days. More importantly, even if Kylo could do such a thing to Hux, Hux doubts he has the conviction to go through with it. Frightening or not, Kylo’s telepathy makes for an endless round of ‘he knows that I know that he knows that I know…’ that Hux never has the patience to engage in. 

What Hux knows is this: Kylo's threat is completely undercut by how pathetic it would be having to keep a lover through brainwashing—or whatever brainwashing is called when done via the Force. The fact that Hux chose to have sex with Kylo, and keeps choosing him, is what matters. Anything else would be devastating to Kylo’s already fragile sense of self. 

And that means Kylo knows that Hux knows. Kylo can also see how much Hux likes having that power over him. The part that he seems to be getting stuck on is that Hux isn’t going to end the relationship, or tell Kylo no, just to prove he can. Kylo’s only having a crisis because although there aren’t a lot of people who have the ability to hurt him, those who can, always do. He’ll reconcile this anomaly eventually, he’s resilient like that.

“I'm too fond of your cock to tell you to pfassk off," Hux says.

Kylo pulls Hux’s arms so his back is forced to bend in a more pronounced arch. His shoulders are aching and he desperately wants a hand on his cock, but as Kylo’s rhythm picks up, he can feel Kylo pushing into his mind as gently as he knows how. It feels a little bit like getting fucked from both ends. Hux lets his head hang between his shoulders, relaxing into it.

"The things I can do barely register with you,” Kylo says, wondering.

"I don't keep you around because I give a damn about the Force, no," Hux agrees, even as an invisible hand wraps around his cock, more pressure than anything he can push against. "I have an army, a dreadnaught, and the Starkiller, the hell do I need a witch for?”

"Are you saying you like me as a person?" Kylo teases. He hauls Hux backwards, until Hux is sitting in his lap, wholly seated on his cock.

“Now you’re just being offensive,” Hux says, too full of Kylo’s dick to be properly scathing. 

“It’s not totally useless,” Kylo says. “The Force, I mean.”

There’s a strange tugging sensation in Hux’s mind and then it’s like Kylo finds a way to trigger every one of his pleasure receptors at the same time. 

Hux’s vision whites out as he comes. He’s blinded, deafened, held in place when he tries to curl up around the feeling. It goes on, and on. So much. Too much. He can barely breathe around it. And then Kylo releases him. Hux moans and shudders in his arms, and passes out about the same time that Kylo comes.

Hux isn’t out for long, but he requires a solid half hour to do nothing but lie there and recover the feeling in his legs. 

Kylo uses that time to rub bacta on the bite marks that would show above Hux’s collar (although Hux notes that Kylo doesn’t do a damn thing about the rest of them) and cuddle him while Hux is too worn out to grumble. Eventually, Hux groans and shuffles around a bit, and Kylo sits back against the wall so Hux can sit between his thighs, half reclining against him. Hux thinks vaguely about getting a droid to bring them dinner, but decides he’s not ready for that much activity.

“I forgot to say.” Kylo holds out a hand and a small box flies in from the other room. “I got this for you.” He puts the box into Hux’s lap, a studied nonchalance in his voice.

Hux knows what it is before he even lifts the lid. He recognizes the manufacturer. Kylo got him cigarras. Nice ones.

“That was very thoughtful,” Hux says, and accepts the light that Kylo gets out for him. 

Hux takes a drag and savours the taste. He doesn’t usually indulge himself and buy this high end; too expensive. He doubts Kylo procured them using money, or by any kind of legal means, and he really hopes they didn’t belong to Celwick, but it’s the thought that counts.

Kylo seems content to sit quietly with Hux leaning against his chest, while Hux smokes. He keeps turning his head to press his nose against Hux's hair, and he's basically petting his stomach, but that's easy enough to ignore.

Hux hasn't felt this relaxed in years. It's marvelous.

"How many languages do you speak?" Hux asks.

Kylo says "What?" in confused tones but gamely answers. "I grew up with Basic, binary, and Shyriiwook. Learned Mando'a, Bocce, and Naboo pretty young. Durese, but nothing that should be repeated in elevated company. I used to speak enough Huttese and Ubese to avoid a fight, or start one, but it’s been years and I’m out of practice. Learned a Coruscant-based home-brew sign language with the Ren since Ravage is mute and Eeya'yash can't hear sounds in our vocal range and half their own range is out of our hearing.” He hesitates before admitting, "Sith," but Hux already knew that one.

Hux isn’t even surprised anymore. "Say something in Mando'a," he says.

"Gar enteyor cuyir cyare guuro ashi dha kebise. O’r ranov’la. Acyk te prudii bal te runi.”

"What's it mean?"

"Small, and sharp, and ginger," Kylo says, scratching his nails through Hux’s pubic hair. He doesn’t try to make the lie sound plausible.

Hux rolls his eyes. "I’m sure.” He’s not playing that game. Either Kylo will tell him, or he won’t. “What about something in Shyriiwook?"

Kylo clears his throat and then makes a horrible gargling bark-yell uncomfortably close to Hux's ear. “That’s my…” He swallows, loud enough to hear. “My name,” he says.

Hux is certain that whatever Kylo just said does not translate to ‘Kylo Ren.’ 

“Imagine calling that out in the heat of passion,” Hux says, as dry and ironic as possible, so Kylo doesn’t start upsetting himself. 

Kylo kisses the side of his head. It feels like gratitude. “Mostly you talk to wookiees in Basic, they reply in Shyriiwook. No one sounds like an asshole trying to make sounds their vocal cords aren't built for. How about you?"

"Basic and binary," Hux says, relieved that he doesn’t have to spend several minutes unnecessarily reminding Kylo that a) he doesn’t speak Shyriiwook and therefore has no idea what he said, and b) genuinely could not care less what name Kylo had before he became a Knight of Ren. He highly doubts Ravage or Gida Ren were named thusly at birth. What difference does it make if all the Ren adapt new names?

"That's it?" Kylo says.

"Why should I learn anything else?" Hux says. "Anyone worth speaking to knows Basic. The First Order speaks Basic. Besides, that’s what protocol droids are for."

"Snob," Kylo says. He ghosts his fingertips over Hux’s ribs, making him shiver. 

"I promise if I ever need to talk to a wookiee, I'll send for you. Would you like a drag?"

Kylo hesitates. "I'm not supposed to…"

“You're always saying that. What is it you’re not supposed to do? Enjoy things? Have sex? Foster a positive working relationship with your co-commander?"

Kylo plucks the cigarra out of his hand and takes a drag. He holds the inhale like a pro before exhaling a perfect smoke ring. "Yeah," he says in a slow, lazy drawl.

Despite himself, Hux finds it all wildly attractive. "Where did you learn that?" he asks.

"Several of my courtesy uncles, I guess is the term, used to smoke cigarras. I used to steal them when no one was looking.” 

"One day you're going to tell me where you came from." Hux can feel Kylo tensing up, so he just pats his knee and takes the cigarra back. “Not today. Today, you’re going to teach me how to blow smoke rings.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> This chapter is probably 90% sex. That’s not a warning, it’s just a statement as to why all the warnings are about sex.
> 
> It’s stated in the narrative that Hux and Kylo engage in kinky sessions when Kylo is emotionally unstable. It’s vague, but the implication is that it’s some kind of power-play, D/s thing where Hux gets Kylo to submit and afterwards Kylo feels better. At no point do they ever discuss these sessions.
> 
> Kylo cries after the first time he bottoms. He’s not hurt, or even really sad. Some people cry after really intense sex. Hux is, surprisingly, not a huge asshole about it.
> 
> It is revealed Hux has scars from being beaten with a belt as a child. Vague description of the scars, no details of the abuse beyond that mention.
> 
> In another scene, Hux responds positively to jealous and possessive behaviour from Kylo that even Hux knows is a problem. He mentally acknowledges it’s not a good thing, and outwardly rebukes the behaviour, but he does like the idea of someone being obsessively into him. 
> 
> And in the next scene, (I told you this one was a porny chapter) Kylo and Hux have rough sex. Kylo puts his dick in Hux with lube but without any other prep, which they absolutely did not discuss at any time. Hux gives the verbal equivalent of a yellow light and Kylo summarily ignores it. He's monitoring Hux's thoughts to be sure he's not actually hurting him, but he doesn't say so. Also, during this scene, Kylo dirty talks about how jealous and angry he felt when he thought Hux might be sleeping with other people, and is once again a walking Red Flag. Kylo suggests he could use the Force to make Hux be faithful. Hux isn’t threatened as he rightly understands that Kylo’s ego couldn’t survive having to make someone want him.
> 
> NOTES:  
> What Kylo says in Mando’a:  
> “Gar enteyor cuyir cyare guuro ashi dha kebise. O’r ranov’la. Acyk te prudii bal te runi.”  
> —You must be loved like other dark things. In secret. Between the shadow and the soul.
> 
> Many of you will notice that it is almost, but not quite, a line from a famous Pablo Neruda poem. The line is often translated into English as:  
> I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
> secretly, between the shadow and the soul
> 
> I used a real poem instead of making one up because I suck at poetry. And I used this one in particular because it had the sentiment I wanted to get across. That is to say, Kylo is reciting love poetry, but he’s also gotta make it weird and vaguely Force-related, and _also_ he’s gonna do it in a foreign language so Hux can’t make fun of him.
> 
> I changed the words for two reasons. One, because the difference between “I love you” and “you must be loved” is VAST and Kylo’s too fucked up to actually say “I love you.” Two, the Mando’a translators I was using couldn’t find a word for “certain” or “secretly.” There is no way this is a good translation. I did my best, but Mando’a isn’t a fully formed conlang.
> 
> Is this the chapter where Kylo basically says, “I love you” twice without actually saying it at all? Yes, yes it is.
> 
> [This is the post that inspired me to have Millicent with her snoot in the tiddy.](https://xzombiexkittenx.tumblr.com/post/618567948794281984/everythingfox-cuddly-boi-via) Originally she was just sitting on Kylo, but I immediately saw the error of my ways.
> 
> I have no idea how First Order ranks work. Does anyone? 
> 
> When Hux says, "a family where every dalton of intelligence is restricted to the women," what it functionally means is "every ounce of intelligence" but at an atomic level. A dalton is the non-International System name for atomic mass. 1 dalton is defined as 1⁄12 of the mass of a single carbon-12 atom, at rest.


	5. Jedi Killer

The sex tapers off a little. Which, on balance, is probably good, because Hux was late to two holocalls and sent an important message to the wrong person, and several of his bridge crew were starting to look at him funny. Less sex than he and Kylo were having at first, is still a substantial amount of sex. Although, sometimes, when Hux is running on fumes, or Kylo is injured, or they’re not in the mood, they play cards or sit quietly in each other’s company, turn in early, and just sleep. Hux enjoys having someone in his bed, even if Kylo absolutely snores. 

Kylo ought to be impossible to sleep with. He snores. He runs hot so he’s always kicking the blankets off the bed in the middle of the night. He takes up every inch of the mattress and treats Hux like a body pillow. Despite these less than ideal factors, when they’re together, Hux sleeps like the dead.

It’s strange, if anyone had asked Hux to describe Kylo Ren, before this all started, thoughtful and affectionate would not have been the words he would have used. But Kylo keeps strange hours, often rattling around well into dorn shift, sometimes clear through to aurek, and if he's awake he'll have a cup of caf waiting for Hux when his chrono goes off. In private, he always wants to sit or stand so at least some part of their bodies are touching. He kisses Hux whenever he thinks he can get away with it, and gives phenomenal foot rubs. He listens when Hux starts ranting about one First Order problem or another. He doesn’t just nod, and parrot back the last thing Hux said, he actually listens. And he’s smart; poorly educated, but extremely smart.

They start trading strategies and ideas back and forth over holochess and sabacc games, working on First Order expansion, picking 'if you could have anyone you wanted' officers, heads of state, diplomats. Kylo teaches Hux to cheat at cards with sleight of hand, and Hux teaches Kylo to control that face of his and bluff.

They make a good team. Hux can get mired in analytics and details. Kylo has the big-picture but few foundations. Hux knows the First Order, and Kylo has a decent understanding of the core planets and the wilder regions of space. In areas where Hux lacks passion or knowledge, Kylo has it, and where Kylo lacks it, Hux has it. Between them, they’re actually one extremely good commander. 

They’re eating dinner one night when Hux shoves a forkful of rehydrated noodles into his mouth, chews, swallows, and says, “Do you know how irritating I find it, to have to admit that I was wrong, and Snoke was right about us?”

Across the table, Kylo stops dragging his foot up the inside of Hux’s calf and frowns. “About what?”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Hux says. “Nothing puts me in the mood like talking about our Supreme Leader with a belly full of carbohydrates.”

Kylo makes deliberate, unbroken eye-contact and slurps up a long noodle with exquisitely disgusting slowness. Hux does not kick him, but he thinks very loudly about doing so until Kylo grins.

“I was just thinking we work well together. Snoke’s been telling us, ‘he has his place, he has his uses, etc. etc.,’ and he was right, we are a good team. It annoys me. I don’t like being wrong.”

“Not behind your back,” Kylo says and then his eyes go wide.

Hux puts his fork down.

“I just…" Kylo says. "Sometimes, after I was complaining about you, and you left first, or weren’t there, he’d say something cutting but then reaffirm your use.”

“I see,” Hux says.

It actually makes more sense. Hux and Kylo had been at one another’s throats for years, and if Hux looks back on all the conversations they had with Snoke together, or he had alone with Snoke… “When we were together he would insist we would make a good team. When you were with him he cut me down, and when I was with—” Hux stops himself. Kylo doesn’t need to hear what Snoke said about him behind his back.

“I’m weak,” Kylo says flatly. “I’m easily led. My passion overcomes my sense. I lack understanding. He says that to my face as well. So.”

“Eat your noodles,” Hux says. “He lies to you. I’ve told you that a hundred times.” 

“He wouldn’t.”

“Apparently he’s been playing us against each other from the beginning, so forgive me if I’m skeptical when he says you’re weak, considering what you can do.” Hux takes his own advice and resumes eating.

Kylo winds the noodles around his fork and keeps winding. “Maybe it’s a test,” he says. “For us, I mean. What if we told him? Maybe us working together is the next step in his plan.”

“Darling, I know you’re the centre of the universe, but why would Snoke hold off on galactic domination just because we couldn't get along? I should like to think we’re important, but we are also replaceable. If Snoke wanted to go ahead with his plans, he would. And it has nothing at all to do with either of us.”

Kylo drags the tines of his fork across the bottom of his bowl so they make a horrible screech. “My master doesn’t lie to me,” he says, stubborn.

It’s so frustrating. No matter how many examples Hux provides, Kylo refuses to believe Snoke isn’t as dedicated to him as he is to Snoke. There’s always some reason, some explanation, as to why what Snoke says is true, even when it’s not.

Snoke says Kylo is weak, and undisciplined. Although there’s no way to know for certain, Hux would rank Kylo as one the top ten warriors _in the galaxy_.

Snoke says Kylo is gifted in his martial abilities (a complete contradiction!), but his intelligence is limited and he’s unable to grasp advanced concepts or stratagems. True, Kylo’s formal schooling is lacking since he quit at a young age to run around the galaxy doing who knows what, and then became a monk. And, yes, his spelling is atrocious, but he’s a polyglot, a pilot, a mechanic, a strategist, and a weirdly good diplomat and negotiator when he’s not trying to be menacing and off-putting. He’s also a fast learner. 

Snoke says Kylo is too emotional and lacking in control. But isn’t the dark side accessed through emotions? And who, Hux might ask, is the one destabilizing Kylo at every turn?

It’s infuriating. 

“You’re spiralling,” Kylo says, nudging Hux’s foot with his own. “Where are you?”

“Being annoyed with your inability to self-assess,” Hux says. “There’s as much danger in under-valuing yourself as there is in overconfidence. I could provide you an itemized list of all my skills, each ranked on a scale from abysmal to genius. You couldn’t give me an accurate assessment if your life depended on it.”

Kylo gets up from the table and drags Hux’s chair back with the Force.

“What are you doing?” Hux says suspiciously.

“Showing you some of my best skills, so you can accurately assess me,” Kylo says. 

Then, to Hux’s horror, Kylo lifts him up and puts him over one shoulder. “I’m going to kick you in the balls,” Hux says. “Put me down.”

“I need those for my assessment,” Kylo says and pats Hux’s ass before he carries Hux into the next room and dumps him on the bed. 

It’s not attractive. It’s beyond tacky, and Hux hates being tossed around like luggage, and…

Kylo grabs a hair tie from the drawer by the bed and loops his hair up messily. “Clothes off, General,” he says and pulls his own shirt off. “I’m ready to give my oral presentation.”

Hux sighs and starts removing his trousers. “Fine,” Hux says. “But I swear to all the gods in the galaxy, if you ask me for a grade at the end of this I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

Apart from Kylo’s insistence that Snoke isn’t screwing him around, which he is, there’s only one minor thing to disturb the relative peace: Kylo repeatedly destroys the combat simulator in training room eight. 

No sooner has it been adjusted, than he breaks it again. Hux has to listen to several techs have nervous breakdowns until he reassures them that no one is angry, and it’s not going to cost them their positions (or their lives, which he thinks might be what they’re really worried about). So long as the other simulators are available for troopers and officers, Hux is fine with eight’s modifications taking more time than expected. It’s not like any of them really understand what Kylo is doing when he uses the Force, and he’s either unable or unwilling to explain it.

The techs are pacified, but the more Kylo breaks the simulator, the twitchier and stranger he gets about it. Hux finally has enough and persuades Kylo to give him a demonstration. He has to extract Kylo’s agreement duing sex, which isn’t fair, but Kylo’s too proud to back down and Hux doesn’t care about fairness. Besides, Hux designed a machine that will harvest stars and move phantom energy through sub-hyperspace, he can troubleshoot a combat simulator.

Kylo drags his feet but eventually, after insisting that Hux can only watch from the observation room, gets on with it. It’s immediately obvious why Kylo is having some sort of crisis.

Hux has seen Kylo fight before, both in real battles, and simulations. He tears though the projected combatants like wet paper, five, six, seven at a time. His facility with his lightsaber has always been impressive and that hasn’t changed.

It's what happens when he uses the Force that's different. Kylo stops blaster bolts in midair and throws out percussive walls of energy that Hux suspects could knock a whole battalion down. He reacts to things almost before they happen in a way that verges on precognitive. Finally, as several opponents converge on him, Kylo glances over his shoulder at the one-way transparisteel between the training room and the observation room, right at Hux, like he can see him. Hux could swear they make eye contact, then Kylo turns back to the fight. He reaches out, obviously intending to toss his enemies back with the Force, and an actual bolt of electricity comes out of his hand. 

The simulator breaks again.

Hux waits a few seconds to make sure Kylo isn’t about to burst into flames, or shoot lasers out of his eyes—because honestly, Hux has no idea what’s possible any more. He didn’t think a human being could generate lighting, Force or no Force—and then joins Kylo in the training room. Kylo usually smells a little bit like ozone but now it’s impossible to miss, the scent of it heavy in the air. But he’s not smoking, or crackling, or doing anything extraordinary, so Hux figures it’s probably safe.

Kylo powers his lightsaber down and puts it in his belt. His hands are shaking and he’s panting for breath like he’d just run a lap around _Finalizer_. 

“You might have mentioned you were generating electricity,” Hux says, as the poor overworked processor catches alight.

“I wasn’t,” Kylo says. “That’s new.” The light from the fire reflects gold and red in his eyes. Then the emergency system kicks in, startling them both with the noise.

“I see,” Hux says. He does not. “So every time…”

Unless Kylo is meditating, he’s got a lot of energy and it’s hard for him to stay still. Now though, he seems frozen in place. Maybe he’s afraid of what will happen if he moves. 

“They fix it,” Kylo says. “They boost it to handle more than I can do. And it works for a while. And then.”

“And then you do something more,” Hux finishes. “This time it’s lightning.” 

He comms the emergency response team to inform them the fire is out and they’re to stick to Kylo’s usual protocols which are to never enter the room while he’s training. There’s not a chance this is going to be solved in the next few minutes and decamping to one of their quarters will give Kylo too much time to decide he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Something must have changed. What about your training, or the meditation?” Hux prompts. “Nothing different?”

Finally Kylo moves, shifting his weight like a guilty schoolboy. “No,” he says. “You know there isn’t.”

What they both know is that Kylo spends significantly less time meditating and training than he used to.

He’s not as much of a religious fanatic as Hux thought. He just wants to be. Kylo is genuinely convinced he’s on some mystical path and should be focusing his attention on that journey. But as much as he professes to want to “become one with the dark side”—whatever the kriff that’s supposed to mean when it’s at home—his actions say something very different. Kylo will take every opportunity to do literally anything other than spend every day alone with his training. He only wants to want the thing he calls his destiny.

And yet.

“Obviously there’s something,” Hux says. 

“That… Sex has nothing to do with it,” Kylo says, needlessly, sharply defensive. “That’s not how the dark side of the Force works.”

"If I thought it was about sex, I would have brought it up myself,” Hux says, trying to think of some other answer. He’s got nothing. “Aren’t there Sith temples you can poke around in?”

“I’m not Sith.”

Hux gives him a withering look. “Do the Ren have ancient texts and artefacts you can consult for advice?”

“…No,” Kylo says.

“Well then, it’s that or the Jedi. Since you killed most of them and burned their temple down, I rather assumed there wouldn't be much left to consult.”

Kylo’s face twists unhappily. He doesn’t like it when people call him Jedi Killer or mention the massacre. It’s very odd. Hux would have thought he’d be proud of what he did.

“Summon your Knights,” Hux says, because Kylo is in no state to have his insecurities pricked. “Use their resources. Use the resources of the First Order. I’m not sure what help we can be, but anything you need, I’ll see you have it.”

Hux doesn’t suggest informing Snoke of this latest development. Kylo never told Snoke about the first incident, and he never again brought up the idea that he should. There is some very serious reason that Kylo won’t talk to his master about what’s happening to him, but he’s not telling Hux, and Hux certainly isn’t going to get in the middle of whatever's going on there.

Kylo touches Hux’s cheek with the hand that created lightning. It feels like his hand always feels, even if it is still shaking a little bit. “You’re not scared of me,” Kylo says; not quite a statement, and not quite a question.

It’s something of a preoccupation of his, the idea that Hux is as unimpressed by him as the day they met. It seems to make him happy, whereas anyone else questioning his authority or power is a quick way to set off his temper. But, since it’s mostly true, Hux is willing to express his disdain as often as Kylo requires it.

“Amazingly, no. I’m not scared of someone who’s too soft to move my cat off him when he wants to get up,” Hux says. “We had this conversation months ago.”

Kylo leans forwards like he wants to kiss Hux, but isn’t sure he should. It reminds Hux that he’s been watching Kylo train, and that always puts him in the mood. Pondering Kylo’s mysterious new abilities hasn’t done much to dampen that arousal. 

Hus pulls Kylo in by his belt. “Besides, you know how much I enjoy your witchery when it’s aimed at someone else,” he says.

The golden gleam from the fire fades out of Kylo's eyes. "Yeah?" he says, fitting his hands over Hux's narrow hips.

They have sex in training room eight. Again.

Hux really should have expected that Kylo’s problem wasn’t going to be solved with a blowjob, but he’d been hopeful that it was enough to get Kylo through the night until he joined up with the Knights. It should have been obvious that they weren’t going to have a restful cycle, but, in Hux’s defense, he’s a little distracted. Instead of turning in early, in preparation to fly out and meet the Ren, Kylo decides it’s a good time to see how many times he can edge Hux before Hux loses his mind and Kylo loses his patience. 

The thing is, Kylo is confessional after sex. He spills his guts like he's been waiting his whole life for someone to listen to him.

Over the months, Hux has learned that Kylo had more courtesy aunts and uncles than is reasonable, one of whom was a wookiee. He learned to pilot before he was even tall enough to reach the controls. He's a card sharp. He's never had an honest job. He didn't start training to be a Jedi until he was in his teens, when most start as children. 

That night, after he’s done his best to render Hux unable to walk or form a coherent sentence, Kylo sits on the edge of the mattress and drinks almost half a litre of whiskey, right out of the bottle. He won’t look at Hux, or listen when Hux suggests that so much alcohol might not be a good idea, especially for someone who doesn't usually drink. He just sits there, working very hard on oblivion, and haltingly tells Hux what really happened during the Jedi Temple Massacre. 

According to him, the temple was struck by some electrical force—maybe a weapon fired from a ship, maybe a storm caused by Kylo’s own power (Hux finds that highly unlikely). Either way, Hux’s image of Kylo and the Knights of Ren in some fantastic battle with Jedi was utterly wrong. No mission from Snoke. No Knights. Not even any Jedi except for the one who tried to kill Kylo in his sleep. There were deaths, but not like Hux had thought.

“They were just kids,” Kylo says, slurred and miserable. “All of them, younglings. Little kids.”

There was nothing glorious or impressive about the destruction of the Jedi temple. There was only Kylo, still a teenager, betrayed and alone, sifting through char and ash trying to recover the bodies of children he couldn’t save. No wonder he doesn’t like being called Jedi Killer.

Kylo definitely wasn’t lying about not drinking. He’s barely finished his story before he staggers to the refresher and throws everything back up while the lights go haywire. Hux holds his hair for him and doesn’t try to tell him any of it was alright. The whole thing is just depressing. When Kylo's stopped heaving and has managed to keep some water down, Hux drags him back to bed, tells him he’s an embarrassing lightweight, and rubs his back until Kylo falls asleep. The lights finally settle.

Hux gets a comm from an extremely alarmed officer informing him that not only did the electrics all over the ship fluctuate, but _Finalizer_ moved half a rotation around, and two klicks away from Ilum and no one on the bridge can figure out why. Hux tells the officer it’s classified and not that it was because Kylo was on his knees in the refresher, weeping over the dead children of his enemies. He sends out a message to several other key people around the ship telling them the same thing.

The next morning, by unspoken agreement, he and Kylo both act like none of it happened. There isn’t time for discussion, anyway. Kylo takes his personal craft out to meet with the Knights and look for Sith wisdom. Hux considers ‘Sith wisdom’ to be an oxymoron, but it's not like he's got any answers.

Hux is prepared to spend the night catching up on his messages and not thinking about the physics of moving a battle cruiser with one’s mind, when Phasma comms him and tells him to bring his sakresh deck to her quarters.

"You want to talk about it?" she asks.

“I was very clear that last night’s movement of the ship is top-secret,” Hux says.

Phasma only makes a face, like Hux has missed something obvious. “Everyone knows Ren did it,” she says dismissively. "You might as well just tell them that next time. 'Ren did it' means we can collectively shrug, wash our hands of it, and be glad it's your problem and not ours."

That's not the best news Hux has had, but if his crew is resigned to strange things happening because of their resident Force-user, he might as well go with it.

“It’s not like it’s a mystery for the ages,” Phasma says. “You’re the one who called him a malfunctioning Starkiller, is it such a wonder that everyone else assumes weird shit is his fault? I don’t care about that. You’ve been putting me off. So… How's life without stims?"

"What?" Hux says, shuffling the deck with a flourish. "I haven't stopped taking them."

"But you’re sleeping five hours a night, you’re barely working off-shift, you put on weight. Which you needed, by the way.” She narrows her eyes. "Are you a clone?"

"Of course not," Hux says. “I did cut back, but there’s too much work to be done. I don’t see why it’s any—”

"And you haven't been gloating about how well Ren’s behaving,” she interrupts. “What's wrong with you?"

Hux is starting to feel insulted. "There is nothing at all wrong," he says.

Phasma just sits there and frowns at him while he deals the cards. She doesn’t pick up her hand or comment on his new technique. He was rather looking forward to their game, since Kylo taught him how to cheat. Hux had been trying to guess how long it would take Phasma to notice.

She doesn’t seem interested in playing cards though. “I’ve known you for years, and not once in that time have you ever been so…” Phasma gestures at him, irritated. “So _that_.”

Hux puts his cards back down. Someone’s going to find out eventually. It might as well be Phasma. “This stays between us,” he says.

“I knew there was something!”

“Alright, yes, fine. I saw Kylo without his helmet,” he says, because it’s best to start at the beginning. “He’s quite handsome.”

She doesn’t let him finish. “Armitage, no. You didn’t have sex with Kylo Ren. Is that why the ship moved?!"

"Of course not!" Hux huffs out a breath. “We started sleeping together ages ago. Besides, it worked. When’s the last time he killed a trooper or wrecked anything?”

“Are you seriously going to bring up your insane, suicidal plan?” She’s the one complaining about strange behaviour, but it’s not exactly usual for her to put her head into her hands in apparent despair. “You’ve been screwing Ren because you thought it would give you leverage?”

Hux gets up and pours her a drink. He might be a little aggressive about putting the cup down next to her. “For the record, I’m not thrilled by your histrionics,” he says. “Are we going to play sakresh or do you want to moan at me for no good reason?”

Suddenly, almost violently, Phasma sits up again. “What do you mean ‘ages ago’? When did it start?”

Hux has to think for a second. “Four… no, five, almost six months ago. You seem very distressed. Should I come back another night?”

Phasma makes a sound Hux has never heard from her; a wordless exclamation of frustration. “I didn’t think this could possibly get any worse than you sleeping with the Supreme Leader’s gods-cursed apprentice,” she says. “And somehow you’ve managed to prove me wrong. You’re smarter than this, I know you’re smarter than this.”

“Get to the point,” Hux says. 

“If I went into Ren’s quarters, how many of your uniforms would be there? How many nights a week do you literally sleep together? How many meals do you share?”

He’s not sure why she’s so incensed about where his uniforms are. It’s only practical to keep some of his things in Kylo’s quarters, although they mostly sleep in Hux’s rooms because of Millicent.

He’s been…

There’s a kettle and a teapot in his quarters so Kylo can make his revolting tea the way he likes. 

They both have two sets of toiletries in their refreshers. Kylo requisitioned more tableware.

They’ve been…

Hux can’t remember the last time he slept by himself. 

For five months.

Hux sits back down. “Fuck me,” he says. “I’m living with Kylo.”

“It's upsetting how stupid you can be, considering how intelligent you are.” Phasma twists in her seat so she can grab the bottle and sets it between them along with another cup. “Is he even human?”

Hux feels a little bit like he’s been hit with a stunner. “He’s human. Male. Twenty-six. He has very soft hair." Hux accepts the drink Phasma pours for him but just holds it, blindsided. “How did I not notice we were in a relationship?” he says.

“Oh good,” Phasma says. “We’ve all arrived at the same port. Now, we've established your reasons for fucking him were completely delusional, but did you at least stop and ask yourself why you kept doing it?"

"He's very good in bed," Hux says defensively.

"And if you were simply sneaking off into supply closets now and again, I wouldn't be concerned. You don't move into another man's quarters because he knows his way around a cock. Are you really going to sit there and tell me it's about the sex?"

Hux puts the cup down before he drops it. "He's interesting," Hux says bleakly. “He's utterly mental, but he's interesting and I enjoy his company. I’m nice to him because it makes him happy, and that's important to me. Because we’re living together. How did I not notice?”

“You're emotionally stunted,” Phasma says. “Speaking of, did you ever find out what happened to Ren?”

There are too many answers to that question: Kylo had a strange and tumultous childhood surrounded by strange and mysterious adults; he was a monk; his first master tried to murder him in his sleep; his current master keeps lying to him; he’s sleeping with a man who saw his trauma and immediately tried to use it against him; he’d be much happier as just about anything else in the galaxy other than Snoke’s apprentice.

“It’s hard to pick just one thing,” Hux says. “I don’t think life has been very kind to him.”

Phasma makes a rude sound. “What part of him choosing to work for this outfit ever implied he had a pleasant upbringing?” She picks up her hand and shuffles through it. 

They both stare at their cards for a while.

Then, Phasma says, “You ever think about what you might do if you weren’t here?”

There were a few moments, early in Hux’s life, when things were especially bad, where he thought he might like to be dead. But those have only ever been his two options: stay alive and fight to make something of himself in the First Order, or die.

“No,” Hux says. “Not once.”

Phasma looks at him with pity before she raps her knuckles on the table as if closing the discussion. “Alright, let’s play some cards.” After another second, she adds, “If he ever makes you unhappy, I’ll space him.”

“Thank you, Phasma,” Hux says. “It’s good to know I can always rely on you.” He means it to be sarcastic but it doesn’t quite come out that way.

Kylo returns to _Finalizer_ with two rotten old tomes written in High Sith and a metal box about half the size of a mouse droid, all of which he drops just inside the door of his quarters with a lot less deference than Hux might have expected.

“I’m going to be translating those forever,” Kylo complains, but he’s clearly pleased with what he and the Knights managed to find. He tosses his travel duffel on the floor as well, and unlatches his helmet.

The service droid waiting at the door, holds out its bin hopefully. Kylo's clothing hasn't smelled of death and unwashed man for months because Kylo always sends them away to be cleaned. Hux never even had to ask, he realizes, Kylo just started doing it. 

“I’ll clean my helmet myself, thank you though,” Kylo says to the droid. He’s nice to them, even the ones without advanced intelligence, which Hux finds charming. True, Kylo destroys them when he’s in a temper, but he also kills people, so that’s not saying much.

Hux gives him a kiss and tries to take the helmet. “Hello,” he says. “Welcome back.”

“Hey,” Kylo says. He keeps hold of the helmet so he can pull Hux closer and kiss him again. He's obviously in a fantastic mood. He isn’t like Hux, he needs time off-ship, with his feet in the dirt and organic life around him, or he starts to fade a little. Now that he’s stretched his legs, he’s practically glowing.

“You look good.” Kylo relinquishes his hold and bends down to start working on his boots.

“I look the same as I do every day,” Hux says, but he’s flattered by the compliment. He takes the helmet and the books and puts them on Kylo’s workstation.

He’s about to pick up the box when Kylo, awkwardly standing on one foot, one boot on, one boot off, puts out a hand to stop him. “Careful,” Kylo says.

Hux raises his eyebrows. “I thought I’d give it a bit of a kick,” he says. “Toss it around. See if it will bounce.”

Kylo smacks his ass, smiling. “I missed you,” he says. “You don’t feel that?”

The only thing Hux can feel is his face going red, despite the fact that the only one to see them is the droid, and it has about as much sentience as a hot plate. “I take it you don’t mean your hand.”

“The Orb of Darth Harrow…Really? Not even a sort of electrical charge?”

“Is it supposed to be emanating from the box? Because, no.”

Kylo shakes his head and goes back to trying to yank his boot off. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as unattuned to the Force as you are. If dark energy was radioactive, we’d both be dead.”

Hux picks up the box anyway and takes it to the workstation. Kylo watches him with amazed horror and delight, like it shouldn’t be possible for Hux to even stand near it, never mind touch it. 

“Stop looking at me like that. If it’s so dangerous then why are you keeping it here?” 

“I don’t want to leave it in a storeroom until I can be sure it’s secure, but I think it would be better if we both stick to your quarters until I figure out a better method of containment.” Kylo gives one big pull and manages to get his second boot off.

“About that,” Hux says. “Did you know we’re living together?”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Kylo says disingenuously. He peels his socks off, sticks them in the boots, and hands everything over to the droid. “I just thought I’d somehow managed to acquire a small ginger creature that likes to scratch me, and a loth- cat.”

Hux gives him a flat look. “Very funny,” he says.

“You didn’t,” Kylo says, face creasing up with a gleeful smile. “You didn’t realize.”

“I had it brought to my attention that it’s been almost six months,” Hux says.

“You told Phasma about us," Kylo says, even more pleased. “I need a sonic. Squeeze in with me and wash my back.”

“It doesn’t matter how often you try,” Hux says, “the sonic is too small for both of us. I’ll be here when you get out.”

“Yeah you will,” he says, and kisses Hux again. “Because we live together.”

While Kylo is in the sonic, Hux sulks for a bit. Maybe it was an obvious sort of thing to miss, but it wasn’t as though he ever made any sort of decision about it. One minute they were screwing around, and then they were exclusively screwing around, and then…

Hux stands in the doorway of the refresher, irritated. “Alright,” he says. “When did you figure it out?”

“Which part?” Kylo says.

“Which…! What other part?” Hux says.

Kylo sticks his head out of the shower; he's using the water setting, because he's an absolute barbarian. “I asked if you wanted to keep a uniform or two here about seven weeks after the first time you slept over.” 

The first time Hux slept in Kylo's quarters was the very first time they fucked. Hux can’t believe Kylo asked him to move in less than two months after they fucked. They weren’t even…no wonder he was upset when Praxisuh suggested that Hux might be sleeping with someone else. They’ve been living together, practically from the beginning, and Kylo has known the entire time and didn’t say anything. Hux can’t believe he’s the one who needed to be told. 

Kylo doesn’t seem to care that he’s dripping water all over the floor. “I didn’t think you needed to be told. You got me a kettle and cleared out a drawer. It’s not like either of us had to end the lease on a city apartment, or something. Although, I was thinking, one of us should move. If we had adjoining quarters, we could put a door between them, double the space, and Millicent would have twice as much room to run around in.”

It’s a good idea. It seems sudden, but it seems sudden because Hux only just figured out they’re living together. It’s not sudden at all. They’re already there. 

What sort of idiots are they? They hated each other barely five minutes ago. Kylo is ten pounds of crazy in a five pound sack, and a witch to boot. Hux is too busy to have a relationship. He doesn’t know how to have a relationship, he’s not sure he’s ever been in one before. Certainly not like this.

Kylo flicks water at him. “Hey,” Kylo says. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Hux wipes the water off his face with his hand and pushes Kylo back into the shower, closing the door on him so he stops making a mess.

“You’re freaking out,” Kylo says, muffled by the water. “I can feel it.”

“So stop feeling it!” Hux snaps. “You have that option, I don’t.” Hux is not emotionally equipped to be in a relationship with another human being, and neither is Kylo.

The water shuts off and Kylo gets out. He stops long enough to wrap a towel around his waist and then drags Hux into an embrace, utterly soaking his uniform. Kylo holds him until he stops trying to get away and resigns himself to being held. For a supposed dark lord, Kylo is awfully fond of cuddling.

“No one’s ever ready,” Kylo says, dripping steadily onto the floor and all over Hux. “Right now, it’s working. If it stops working, we’ll deal with it then.”

It’s so offensively mature that Hux is startled right out of his fit of panic.

“I suppose,” Hux says.

“You like living with me,” Kylo says. “I let you put your cold feet on me."

Hux sighs. “You can let go now.”

Kylo releases him and grabs another towel for his hair, wrapping it like a turban. He looks ridiculous. “You think I’m handsome,” he says, grinning obnoxiously.

“Stop reading my mind,” Hux says. He goes to Kylo’s room to get a dry uniform and stops, halfway undressed. “How bad is the energy from the Orb of Darth Whoever?”

Kylo, mostly dry and now totally naked, follows Hux into the bedroom. “Harrow,” he says. “It’s not great, why?”

Hux looks at Kylo and then down at his own bare torso. “Is that ‘go to my rooms’ not great, or ‘let’s have sex first and worry about magic later’ not great.”

“Definitely the latter,” Kylo says. “But it’s still not magic.”

Afterwards, Hux says. "It would be better if you moved. My terminal is customized and Millicent wouldn't like such a big change. Besides, Lieutenant General Arcoum has the quarters next to mine and he’s sleeping with the Chief of Technical. If I catch her coming out of his rooms one more time I’m going to have to do something about it, and no one wants that."

Kylo, who now needs another sonic says, “Isn’t he her superior officer?"

“Nominally. Even so, I’d have him up on charges, but like I said, she’s Chief of Tech.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Kylo says. He rolls over so he can put his sweaty head on Hux’s chest.

Hux obligingly pets Kylo’s hair for him. “Tech and Engineering are probably the most dangerous divisions on this ship. When I was a lieutenant, a security officer assaulted a junior programmer. I had him written up but there were no surveillance systems operational in the area, and the programmer refused to say anything. However, two days later, the security officer suffocated to death in his own quarters when carbon monoxide was mysteriously piped into his rooms, his door jammed, and his comms went offline. You don’t fuck with Engineering, and you don’t fuck with Tech.”

“Force,” Kylo says, impressed. “I thought I was living dangerously.”

“I can only do what protocol allows,” Hux says, which is a barefaced lie. “They’ll make your life a living hell and never get caught. So, no, I’m not worried if Arcoum wants to sleep with Laga.”

Kylo turns his head enough to kiss Hux’s chest. “Hey,” he says. “I’m moving quarters. You know why?”

Hux is in too good a mood to bother hiding his own pleased smile. “Because we’re living together.”

Off the record, Kylo swaps quarters with Lieutenant General Arcoum, who is more than happy to get away from Hux. Technical Chief Laga gives Hux a top of the line, fully customized datapad that runs at lightspeed. Not for any reason, she tells him, certainly not because Kylo’s old quarters are a little bit bigger than the ones given to a Lieutenant General and she’s enjoying the benefits, and absolutely not because she and Arcoum no longer have to worry Hux will catch them. She winks at him. Hux refrains from commenting on her lack of professionalism because a) he only set up the change because of his own domestic situation, so he really doesn’t have the moral high ground and b) she’s the Technical Chief and he wants to stay on her good side.

One of Kylo’s many skills is that he’s quite handy. He borrows tools from engineering and installs an adjoining door himself. Millicent has a wonderful time expanding her territory, especially when Kylo puts up what he calls a ‘cat highway’ around the walls of the smaller bedroom. Officially it’s a space for Kylo to meditate and do the weird stretches and contortions he says are supplemental to his ‘saber training (Hux has no idea about any of that, but they make Kylo extremely flexible, so he’s not complaining). Unofficially, it’s Millicent’s room.

The living space with Hux’s terminal becomes a dedicated office. Laga is also happy to install a second terminal for Kylo, and she doesn’t say a single word about it. Kylo makes himself a workbench so he can build his little fighting robots, and whatever other thing crosses his mind. The workbench’s main feature is that it’s exactly the right height to get bent over.

They get rid of the duplicate furniture and the smaller things, like second toothbrushes and the second kettle. The Orb of Darth Harrow gets a new box and is kept in an out of the way storage room off-limits to all personnel. Hux has a very small panic attack when everything is settled, but it’s quickly resolved and, incidentally, is how he and Kylo find out the workbench is such an ideal height.

Life carries on.

Phasma warns Hux not to get complacent, and he scoffs at her because he’s never been complacent a day in his life. But Starkiller keeps being built, and he keeps winning skirmishes against the rebels, and one of his captains has an absolutely phenomenal showing in a battle against insurgents on a First Order planet, so Hux gets to publically commend him and let the other captains throw a little party. As is usual for that sort of thing, the troopers throw their own party, Hux pretends not to know about it, and morale goes through the roof. Kylo hasn’t found anything useful in his books, but the translation process is laborious and he’s still working through the second text. Even if he doesn’t find the answers he’s looking for, there are always more avenues of research.

Life on _Finalizer_ is good. It’s peaceful. 

They get eleven months before it falls apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Kylo tells Hux what really happened during the massacre at the Jedi temple. He deals with the bad memory by getting drunk and is subsequently sick. It is not described in detail.
> 
> Hux mentally recalls an unspecified time (but it is implied that time was during his childhood because of the Academy and Brendol’s A+ parenting) when he was suffering from suicidal ideation.
> 
> Hux tells Kylo about a time in his days as a junior officer when a security officer sexually assaulted a junior member of the technical team. Hux was unable to discipline him because there was no evidence and the tech wouldn’t say anything. Later, however, carbon monoxide was piped into the security officer's rooms instead of oxygen, and he suffocated to death. Hux is very clear that this was not an accident and it’s unwise to upset anyone in Tech or Engineering, no matter their rank.


	6. Neither Anger Nor Fear

Hux has spent the past week trying to find out what Kylo is planning. He’s certain that Kylo is the sort of sentimental idiot who wants to do something to mark their first year together, and he hates surprises. He suspects Jenji is in on it, because she very casually suggested that he might consider moving his shore leave up. Hux called her a traitor and she smiled at him and told him to cut back on the stims because they were making him paranoid.

He isn’t concerned when Kylo is summoned to talk to Snoke. It happens. They’ve had plenty of meetings with Snoke, together and separately, so Hux doesn’t think anything of it. The second he goes to their rooms after his shift, Hux remembers all the reasons he should have been concerned. He should have been making plans, and he should have been fucking terrified.

The kitchen-cum-living room is destroyed. Utterly demolished. All the furniture, and the little things they’d accumulated together. The walls are smoking, slashed to pieces, durasteel crumbling onto the floor. Only two things survived Kylo’s rampage: Hux’s couch, and Kylo’s helmet, the latter of which is lying in a corner, like he took it off and threw it.

Millicent is shrieking from behind the adjoining door. At least Kylo shut her away, Hux thinks, she might never recover otherwise. It means Kylo still has some semblance of control if he didn’t wreck Hux's couch, and protected Millicent.

Some small measure of control or not, Kylo is standing in the middle of the carnage with his lightsaber still on, the red glow of it reflecting in his eyes.

"Why?" Hux says.

Kylo punches the wall. It’s so damaged his fist goes right through it. “Snoke knows.”

“I see,” Hux says. He has to swallow twice before he can continue. “We knew it might happen.”

Kylo turns on him, furious. “Ask me,” he says, low and mean. “Say it.”

“Did he tell you to kill me?” Hux says. He’s proud that his voice doesn’t shake.

Kylo backs him up against the door. “Aren’t you going to fight back? Or are you just going to stand there and take it, like a good solider, like the fucking Order commands.”

“I’m considering my options,” Hux says. 

He doesn’t have any. He might as well hand over the blade hidden in his sleeve, there’s not a chance he’d be able to lay so much as a finger on Kylo. The worst part of it, Hux realizes, is that he doesn’t really want to try and cut Kylo’s throat before he can be executed. That’s not how he wants to survive. 

“You’re a coward,” Kylo says. The smell of ozone is pouring off him and all the fine hairs on Hux’s arms and on the back of his neck are standing up.

“What good would it do me to struggle?” Hux says. “We both know I can’t stop you.” He wants to say: I won’t stop you. Or maybe: I won't put either of us through that.

If Snoke has ordered his death, Kylo doesn’t have any other choice. Snoke is Hux’s commanding officer, but he’s more than that to Kylo. He’s Kylo’s master, the centerpoint of his existence. Everything he does is for Snoke in a way that’s not the case for Hux. Hux follows the First Order. Right now, Snoke is the Supreme Leader, but it could be anyone else and Hux would still follow their commands. Kylo follows Snoke, and Snoke alone.

Hux had known, in the back of his head, that they couldn’t have any of it. Kylo wasn’t allowed to have any of it. But they got eleven months, and Hux had been happy. They were both happy.

It’s excruciating. Hux doesn’t see the need to drag it out.

He tips his head up, showing his throat in a sick sort of challenge. _Do it,_ he’s thinking, aiming it at Kylo like a weapon. _Who’s the coward now?_

Kylo turns away again, picks up the remains of a chair with the Force, and throws it into the pile of parts that used to be the dispenser, hotplate, and his lovely little teapot. The one thing he had that wasn’t because he’s the Master of the Knights of Ren, or because he’s Snoke’s apprentice. Just because he likes tea and likes to make it the old-fashioned way. It was the only thing he had that was really his.

“Stop it!” Hux shouts. “Either do it or not. You don’t have to torture us first."

Kylo powers off the lightsaber. He’s practically shaking with rage. He is shaking. It might not be from rage.

“I lied,” Kylo says. “I lied to Snoke, and told him it was nothing. That it was a good way to keep you in line. I let him see just enough, so now he thinks it’s some petty extension of all that bantha shit we used to pull on each other. I told him it’s amusing to me, feeling the way you hate me even when you’re on my dick. I made it cheap, and pathetic. And he laughed.”

It’s brilliant. Hux couldn’t have done it better himself. Snoke won’t care if they’re playing out a rivalry. He reprimanded them for their backbiting, but Hux knows now that Snoke likes the way they fought. It kept the balance of power squarely in his hands. Convincing him their relationship is just more of the same, was the only move to make. Kylo handled it perfectly. He’s bought Hux time to figure out the strategy he should have been working on all along. There has to be a way to get Snoke to approve, and Hux is going to find it.

But it’s so easy to make Kylo feel small. Hux doesn’t care if people laugh at him. He knows how to make them regret it. Kylo, however, has no tolerance for it. No wonder he took his anger out on the things he’s not supposed to have. He might as well just profess aloud that he’s above it all, that he isn’t attached, that he can’t be hurt by having the things he cares about belittled or taken away. 

Hux’s legs feel unsteady, but he—despite what Kylo might say in anger—isn’t a coward. He goes over to where Kylo is standing and puts his arms around him, resting his forehead on the back of Kylo’s shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hux says. He can feel how tense Kylo is, frozen between fight or flight. “So what if he laughed? It would be risible for us to carry on like that, but we aren’t, so it doesn’t matter. Look, you’ve broken your teapot. Now we’ll have to try and glue it…can it be glued? Isn’t there some sort of archaic Republican art form about putting cups and such back together?”

“I have to go,” Kylo says raggedly. “He says I’m ready for the next part of my training.”

Hux has to take several deep breaths. “Why now?”

“I told him about the simulator. I wanted him to stop laughing.”

Hux closes his eyes and inhales the scent of sweat, ozone, and standard-issue shampoo. “Alright,” he says, trying to sound soothing. “Now you can get answers.”

Kylo turns in his arms. “Don’t go anywhere without me,” Kylo says. 

He doesn’t say that he’s frightened. He doesn’t have to, because Hux has known that there’s no solid ground under Kylo’s anger for a long time now, just the quicksand of self-doubt and fear. Kylo’s always afraid; of himself and the power he wields but doesn’t understand, of Snoke, of the path he’s on. He told Hux that fear can make you just as strong as anger. Hux doesn’t believe him. Neither anger nor fear are solid foundations.

Hux kisses Kylo, and strokes his hair back from his face. “You’re always so dramatic,” Hux says, rallying. One of them has to keep it together. “Where else would I be?”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” Kylo says. He closes his eyes and presses their foreheads together.

“Alright,” Hux says again, even though it isn’t. “Starkiller won’t be finished for two years, at the earliest."

Kylo chokes out a sound that isn’t a laugh. “You wouldn’t wait two years.”

Hux has the sinking feeling that he might wait a lot longer. “Come back sooner then,” he says, and thinks, as hard as he can, _Do what you have to, I don’t care, just come back to me._

Hux doesn’t see Kylo’s ship off. They say their farewells in the ruin of their quarters. And then Kylo is gone. 

Hux schedules a team to repair the rooms. He’s pretty sure he pulls off an expression of vague irritation and frustrated resignation in the face of the repair crew. He’s also pretty sure they don’t buy it, considering how obvious it is that these are not Kylo's rooms, or his, but theirs, together.

It occurs to Hux that Jenji knows about him and Kylo. Phasma knows. Arcoum and Laga definitely know. On reflection, it seems likely that all the officers are aware but have had the good sense not to say anything. There’s no way it hasn’t spread to the troopers.

Hux spends the evening alone, getting extremely drunk, trying not to have a panic attack. Everyone knew. Everyone has known, and he has no idea how long everyone has known. Probably since Kylo moved quarters, Hux thinks glumly. It’s only a matter of time before Snoke finds out Kylo lied to him. The second one of the other generals finds out, they’ll tell him.

There’s got to be some way to convince him their relationship is permissible. Hux lies on the floor and wishes the ceiling would stop spinning. He’d be able to think of something if only the ceiling wasn’t spinning and the durasteel wasn't so cold. He can’t think of anything. In what universe would Snoke want his apprentice in bed, literally and figuratively, with one of his generals? If Hux was Supreme Leader he wouldn’t like it either. They went behind Snoke’s back, and then lied about it. He’d be a fool to tolerate that degree of…

It’s not treason. It’s not really insubordination. Kylo has never been forbidden from having sex. He’s never been told in so many words that he can’t have a relationship. Maybe they can convince Snoke that they did it innocently. Maybe he’ll buy they’re just stupid enough not to have noticed that although he never explicitly forbade it, it was certainly implied.

It’s not a good plan, that’s for sure.

The next morning, Hux drags himself off the floor and puts himself together. He’ll come up with something that doesn’t require Snoke to believe his apprentice and general are so stupid they should probably be executed for being incurable lackwits. In the meantime he has appearances to maintain.

He goes about his routines as usual. He plays cards with Phasma, he works more hours than are good for him, and he micromanages Starkiller’s construction. He doesn’t think about how cold his feet get at night without Kylo to keep the bed warm. He doesn’t think about the way Millicent keeps looking for Kylo and crying for him. Or the way Jenji and Mitaka have taken to whispering behind his back and shooting him worried little glances when they think he’s not paying attention. He doesn’t think about how tired and thin he looks when he catches sight of himself in a mirror.

Phasma starts taking meals with him, mostly to ensure he actually eats something more than ration bars. She’s smart enough not to comment. A number of officers were transferred to _Finalizer_ ; Hux is being watched.

He allows himself one tiny weakness. He collects the bits of Kylo’s teapot from the wreckage and promises himself he'll have it fixed before Kylo gets back. Sure enough, there was a tradition on Alderaan where broken pottery was remade with precious metals. It gives Hux something to do in the evenings—researching the art form, and piecing the teapot back together—something that isn’t drinking by himself and falling into despair.

Two months pass.

Millicent stops looking for Kylo. Hux stops waking up expecting to find someone else in the bed with him. He finishes the teapot and levels out. Jenji and Mitaka might be having an affair. They certainly haven’t stopped conspiring. Phasma hasn’t stopped hovering, silent and concerned.

And then one day, without warning, Ravage and Praxisuh Ren are in Hux’s office. He wasn’t even aware a ship had docked. They must have used some sort of Force trickery to move through _Finalizer_ without anyone remembering they were there. It’s not the sort of thing that says, ‘we are here with good news.’

“How can I help you?” Hux asks. 

Praxisuh’s mask has slits for eyeholes and a faceplate scored like a gladiator’s. She carries a phrik scythe and a blaster and as far as Hux knows, she’s de facto second in command to Kylo. Ravage’s mask, ironically, prominently features a vocoder grid. Ironic since he’s one of two Knights of Ren who can’t or won’t speak. His weapon of choice is a multi-barrelled rifle that Hux thinks might be slightly overkill, but mercifully he’s left it on their ship. 

Ravage closes the door behind them and then both remove their helmets. Praxisuh’s skin is grey-white where it isn’t tattooed in lines so dark blue they’re nearly black. Most female Rattataki aren’t nearly so heavily tattooed, but Praxisuh’s face is decorated as well as her head. She has a metal stud in each nostril, and a ring through her septum. Hux has seen flashes of silver when she speaks and he thinks there might be a bar through her tongue as well.

Ravage is Zabrak. He has a stripe of thick black hair running down the middle of his head, straight though a circle of horns. His brown-tone tattoos mimic the lines of his mask, and Hux wonders which came first. Ravage looks pointedly at Praxisuh, raising his eyebrows as if to say, ‘get on with it.’

“Ravage has some concerns,” Praxisuh says to Hux, in a friendly tone that he does not trust in the slightest. “To be honest, I didn’t really see the need for both of us to subject ourselves to Starkiller. I said Ravage could just swing by and take the information from your mind.”

Hux can’t quite muster up the appropriate level of panic. “There’s no need for that, I’m happy to answer your questions.”

Ravage sits in the chair across from him, setting his helmet on Hux’s desk. He points up and rotates his arm like he’s drawing a tiny circle in the air, then makes a fist and taps it against his chest. 

“Exactly,” Praxisuh says. “Our master wouldn’t like it if any of us went digging around without his permission. So here we are.” She cocks a hip and leans against Hux’s desk, setting her helmet down next to Ravage’s. “For starters, we'd like to know what you’re doing with Kylo.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hux says.

“You,” Praxisuh says. “And the tall human with the time-bomb lightsaber.”

Ravage glances at her wearily before turning his attention back to Hux. He makes the upward pointing circle again and then points the first fingers of each hand at each other and twists them in either direction, frowning.

Hux has no idea what he’s trying to communicate. “Master Ren is currently training—”

Ravage thumps his fist on the desk in obvious irritation and repeats the two signs. Hux looks helplessly at Praxisuh but she’s busy glaring at Ravage. The Knights have some kind of intense exchange that seems to be half telepathic, the rest of it a mixture of furious signs, and Praxisuh saying, “He’s not… It’s only been a few… Stop interrupting me. Not this Order grunt…”

Eventually Ravage throws up his hands in disgust. 

Praxisuh, triumphant, says to Hux, “Listen, our master is strong in the Force but between you, me, and the bedpost, he’s not so strong in the patience department. After Snoke posted him here, we all started taking bets on how long you’d live. Then Kylo and I are halfway out on a deeply pointless mission to talk to some Order General, and he's oh so casually mentioning he's been dining on the dark side of the moon. Parking his speeder 'round back. Playing hide the Vexis. Dueling—"

"Yes, thank you, I get the point," Hux says. If she thinks she can rattle him with a bit of crude language, he’s got news for her about growing up in the military.

"Fucking you, of all people.”

Hux doesn’t care for the way both knights are examining him like he’s some kind of interesting specimen, or a creature they’re not sure they can be bothered to hunt.

“Our master is an ascetic,” Praxisuh says. “No material possessions, no intoxicants, no worldly pleasures.”

Ravage taps two fingers held in a V-shape against the open palm of his other hand.

“Not anymore,” Praxisuh says to Ravage, smirking, before turning back to Hux. “But no sex, either. Until you.”

“I thought all the Ren lived under that ethos,” Hux says.

“Do we look like pfassking Jedi?” Praxisuh says. “Don’t insult us. Our master’s commitment to having the least amount of fun imaginable is part of how he connects to the Force. But you changed that. And now he’s off training and we keep getting…”

Hux and Ravage make eye contact, and Hux doesn’t need telepathy to understand why they came. Despite what Praxisuh’s cavalier attitude might imply, they’re both worried about Kylo.

“What does this mean?” Hux says, with no hope that he’s going to like the answer, and mimics the pointing finger twist.

“Pain,” Praxisuh says, even as Hux is nearly knocked flat by the images Ravage pushes at him. They’re not even images, so much as the sensation of agony, and hurt.

Ravage seems apologetic once he’s stopped shoving pain at Hux. He circles a fist over his chest. Then he puts his fist on his open palm, thumb pointing up, and pulls it from Hux towards himself, then again from Hux to Praxisuh.

“We don’t need his help,” she says, angry, but it’s the same kind of anger that Kylo has, the kind that’s a mask for fear.

“I…” Hux swallows bile. Having emotions pushed on him like that is disorientating. “I don’t know where Kylo is. He didn’t say where he was going or how long he’d be gone.”

Ravage grunts, a rush of air with no real sound behind it. 

“He didn’t tell us, either,” Praxisuh says, low and frustrated. “But we can feel him.”

Ravage makes the sign for hurt and pain again, face a rictus of sadness.

Praxisuh touches Ravage’s shoulder, comforting. “You’re the axis point here, First Order. One minute you and the master are trying to get each other killed, and the next you’re in bed together. Then Kylo starts sending us messages, talking about new sources of power, wanting to look for Sith artefacts, sounding fucking hopeful. I don’t believe for a second that it’s because he finally got his dick wet. If it was about that, we could have talked him into it years ago. Do you know how long it’s been since he sounded—” She glares at Hux. “And now all we’re getting is pain. So you tell us. What under the shadow is going on?"

Hux clenches his fists on his thighs, hidden where the Knights can’t see. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m being watched.”

Ravage makes a sign that even Hux can tell is an incredulous, ‘what?!’

"You didn’t tell Snoke,” Praxisuh says, rising horror in her voice. “And you really think he doesn’t know? You stupid little idiot.”

Hux feels his lip curling back in a sneer. “I’m perfectly aware of the situation,” he says. “Do try not to broadcast it.”

Ravage and Praxisuh have another half-silent exchange, both of them getting increasingly agitated until Praxisuh shouts, “Training isn’t punishment! That’s not our way! Our master wouldn’t submit to that!”

Hux doesn’t say that Snoke isn’t of the Ren. He’s not anything, as far as Hux knows. Kylo's training is whatever Snoke says it is, and of course Kylo would submit to whatever Snoke demanded. He doesn’t know how to do anything else.

All this time, Hux has been telling Kylo that it’s idiocy to follow either side of the Force. It is idiocy, but more than that, it’s another avenue of control Snoke has over his apprentice. If there is no destiny or cosmic law forcing Kylo down the path that Snoke has laid out for him, then it means Kylo has choices. It’s very clear that Snoke does not want Kylo to think he has choices. If you have a weapon as powerful as the Starkiller, of course you don’t want it thinking for itself. What if it doesn’t want to do what you tell it? Stars forbid it opposes you.

Hux doesn’t know how loyal the Knights are to their master versus how loyal they are to Snoke. He’d assumed it worked a little like the First Order; Snoke, to Hux, to the rest of _Finalizer_ ; Snoke, to Kylo, to the rest of the Knights. But he doesn’t know for certain. He wonders now if they might not agree with his philosophy on a universal force having no sides.

“You can find him, can't you?” Hux says. “There must be some reason you might need to see your master.”

Ravage stands up and stalks around the desk. Hux barely has a second to panic before Ravage puts a hand on his face and forces his way into Hux’s mind.

Hux is swamped with images, moments, and emotions. Foreign memories and feelings grate against his own like two ends of a broken bone.

There is Kylo, an awkward, lanky teen, putting the mask on for the first time. A release from being Jedi. Just the Ren, together. No right, no wrong, no light, no dark, only freedom and the shadow.

The first time Snoke called Kylo away for training. Different after; harder, angrier, set on a new path. 

Kylo standing over the body of the former master of the knights, claiming the title for himself.

Unease with Snoke’s influence. Reassurance when Kylo doesn’t demand they change and abandon the ways of the Ren. Confusion as Kylo changes. 

More training. More anger. Further into the ways of the Sith.

Ren are not Sith, not trying to _do_ anything. Just being. Just life. 

Kylo changing. Changing. More unease.

The first time Ravage saw Kylo, that human boy-man. Dirty, blackened with blood and ash. Silent in his voice, but in the Force, everything a scream. Eeya’yash Ren finding him something clean to wear, their four hands steady, almost kind, and their thoughts reaching out to the others: _did not come by choice, did not come of free will in the Force, how old, how old, how long do humans live, barely hatched, still soft and unscaled._

Eeya'yash gives Kylo a shorthand sign for his name and they use the sign for 'alone.' They don't tell Kylo what it means. Kylo never asks.

Ren, the first Ren. Never trusted Snoke. Never truly submitted to Snoke and died at Kylo’s hand because of it. 

Following Kylo. His power. He shares with them. Unease, unease, unease. Asking just enough to pull them too close to Snoke, and too close to the shadow of the Starkiller. 

Ravage fills Hux’s head with the battles the Ren have been called to take part in. Not their way. Not supposed to be their way. Training is not punishment. They learn. They take all of life. They enjoy. Not this misery. Not this pain.

Ravage lets him go and Hux has to cling to his desk so he doesn't tip off his chair. He’s dizzy and his head feels like someone put it in a vice. His nose is bleeding. Hux wipes the blood away with the back of his hand and glares at the Knights. “So _help him_ ,” he says. 

“And what will you do, First Order?” Praxisuh says, both taunting and asking.

She thinks he’s lesser because he doesn’t have the Force. He thinks she’s weak for her belief that magic somehow makes you any better than the people around you. She has a ship, and her little cadre of witches. He has an entire military organization and a machine that will swallow stars whole. 

As they glare at one another, it dawns on Hux that it doesn’t matter who’s right, or how much power they hold between them. None of them can do anything.

It’s a little over two weeks after Hux’s surprise visit from the Knights, when Snoke informs him that Kylo has been released from his training and will be on _Finalizer_ within the day cycle. Hux is very calm, and keeps his thoughts focused on his tasks. He expresses his hope that the training was fruitful and is not reassured when Snoke merely waves him off with instructions to continue his duties as he always has.

There’s not really anything for Hux to do except continue with his duties, so that’s exactly what he does. He takes a half hour to sit in his office and have a minor panic attack, but otherwise he has troop inspections, and a meeting with one of Starkiller’s engineers, and then he has to go over the munitions budget with the purser. 

Jenji takes scrupulous notes, which is good, because Hux barely remembers one second of any of it. At some point during the day, Hux is told that Kylo’s ship has docked, and the Master of the Knights of Ren has returned, but he’s locked into his schedule and there’s nothing to be done about it except send a message to the relay coordinates Praxisuh Ren left him, letting her know Kylo has returned.

When he is finally off-duty, Hux walks, very sedately, to their quarters. He’s not disappointed Kylo didn’t seek him out before that. He was working. Although, it’s been hours. Why didn’t Kylo come and find him? He’s never cared about interrupting Hux’s work before.

There’s clothing on the floor of their quarters, items left in a trail between the door and the bedroom: boots and socks, cape, cowl and helmet, tunic. Millicent is happily camped out in the overturned helmet. 

Hux quickly sheds his command cap and coat and follows Kylo’s clothes to their source. Kylo is sitting on the bed, feet on the floor, shoulders slumped, head bowed. He seems to have stalled out once he sat down. He's still wearing his undershirt and trousers, overshirt hanging from one wrist. 

Hux stands in the doorway to their bedroom and isn't sure what to do. Kylo looks wrecked. His bare feet are covered in open wounds, blisters, and scabs. His arms are scraped and raw. He's rank with sweat, hair hanging in greasy ropes, long enough now to reach past his shoulders. From the patchy beard growing on his face and neck, it doesn't appear as though he's shaved since he left. It doesn't appear as though he's bathed more than once or twice, if that. This is not a man who skipped a sonic after working out, or forgot to wash his hair after too long in the helmet. The layers of grime are caked on. Hux can't imagine what sort of training could possibly require someone to forgo basic hygiene. Not while simultaneously sustaining so many injuries. The smallest wound could easily become infected.

Kylo’s not meditating. Hux has seen that. It sometimes looks like he’s sleeping sitting up, and if Hux just goes about his business Kylo will stay in his meditative trance. But he responds to his name, or to any perceived threat. He’s not asleep, and he’s not meditating. He’s just...not there, looking at his hands with a thousand-yard stare, far away in his own head.

Has Kylo been sitting like that this whole time? It’s been hours.

"Kylo," Hux barks, in his best command voice. 

Kylo doesn't move. Not so much as a twitch to indicate he's listening, that he even heard Hux at all. Hux grabs a handful of Kylo's hair and yanks, hard, forcing his head up. Kylo's lips are dry and cracked, and the skin around his eyes is dark with fatigue.

"Do you require the medic?" Hux asks.

Kylo doesn't look at him. "No," he says, dully.

"Then you will bathe," Hux says. He has every intention of assessing Kylo himself to see if he needs a medic. He doubts Kylo has enough presence of mind to make that call. "You will shave, brush your teeth, and you will dress your wounds with bacta before infection sets in." 

"The body is a prison," Kylo says, still without inflection, still vacant and unseeing. "It doesn't matter."

Hux uses his grip on Kylo's hair to shake him. "I didn't ask for your opinion," Hux says. "When I tell you to do something, I expect to be obeyed."

Kylo's pupils dilate as he finally focuses. 

“There you are,” Hux says, trying not to buckle with relief. “Are you listening now? I don’t want to see you again until you’re presentable.”

With what is clearly an extraordinary effort, Kylo stands. He finishes stripping with stilted movements that speak of more injuries, and goes into the refresher. Hux hears the sonic turn on. He stands there for a moment, paralyzed. He’d expected a lot of things from Kylo’s return but this wasn’t one of them. Marathon sex, perhaps. Kylo telling him that they were done, maybe. Not this. 

Hux wants to burn Kylo's clothes, but he settles for handing the items over to a droid for cleaning. He remakes the bed with fresh sheets and then sits and waits. 

He’s taken to carrying tabacc sticks on his person and he lights one now, to pass the time and give him something to do with his hands. He hasn’t seen that thousand-yard stare since he was fresh out of the Academy, pulling troopers out of the mud on worlds he’s almost forgotten the names of. 

Trauma related to battle, he thinks ironically. He’s always known about that.

Eventually, Kylo emerges from the refresher, naked, shoulders still slumped. He’s thinner than he was when he left. His veins and tendons stand out, eyes sunken, cheeks too sharp. Kylo’s a big man, but now it’s like he’s been carved down to the bare essentials. And on top of that, now that Kylo is clean, Hux can really see the bruises and cuts and scraped skin. 

Hux puts his tabacc stick in the ashtray on the shelf by the bed, leaving it to burn itself out. Kylo had broken the first ashtray he’d got for Hux before he left. When the repairs to their quarters were done, Hux replaced everything just in case Kylo still wanted to...If Snoke would let him. Hux doesn’t have time to dwell on that.

“Come here,” Hux says. 

Kylo goes to his knees, not as careful as he should be. There’s an audible crack when his knees hit the floor. Hux has to control a sympathetic wince, but Kylo doesn’t even flinch. He puts his head down, resting it against Hux's thigh. His breath shudders out of him in a sigh of what sounds like relief and his eyes close.

Hux pets Kylo's hair for a while, combing it with his fingers. It’s a mess of snarls and Kylo clearly didn’t even try to brush it. Hux takes his time untangling the knots, careful not to pull. Slowly, some of the stiffness drains out of Kylo’s body, and his shoulders relax. 

Hux looks down at the expanse of Kylo’s back and catalogues the colour and shape of his bruises. This one could have cracked a rib, that one is over his kidney, another stretches along the curve of his spine. Blows that could have crippled or killed. Other scattered patterns of colour and scrapes from falling, from taking hits he couldn’t block, burns from vibro or electro-powered weapons. Hux has lost fights. He’s had the everloving shit kicked out of him before. But no training he’s undertaken has ever looked like this, not even at the Academy. Training doesn’t leave a man catatonic. What happened to Kylo wasn’t even punishment, like Ravage and Praxisuh Ren had feared. It was torture. 

Hux lets his hand rest heavily on Kylo’s head and then releases him entirely. “Stand up,” Hux says.

Kylo opens his eyes and uncurls in one fluid motion that gets him from his knees to his feet. Hux can only imagine how much pain that move must have caused him.

"Hands behind your head," Hux says.

Kylo does as he’s told, fingers laced together, elbows pointed out. It's not really a stress position, but Kylo is exhausted. At this point, even being on his feet is a stress position.

Hux gets up and circles around him. He ghosts his fingers down the long muscles of Kylo's back and sides, gentle over the mottled purple and green of Kylo's skin, and watches as the bacta clears away the bruises, like a hand wiping away steam from transparisteel. Even as battered as Kylo is, he’s still lovely to look at.

"You have to take better care of yourself," Hux says after a minute or so, when the worst of the bruising is finally fading and the minor scrapes are gone.

"It's worthless," Kylo says, starting to shake. "The body."

That's a worrying amount of disassociation that Hux really isn’t equipped to deal with. He doesn't have time to research, or plan out his next move, so he can only hope he doesn't kark this up too badly to fix if he gets it wrong.

Hux hasn’t always had mind-readers to hand. He’s had to interrogate prisoners the old-fashioned way. A lot of people mistakenly believe you have to break your subject. Hux has been lectured more than once on how he ought to be disrupting sleep, removing stimulus, confining and demotivating prisoners. But people will say absolutely anything in order to make pain stop. Any intelligence received under those circumstances is suspect at best and more often than not turns out to be utterly worthless. If you want truthful information, you have to build rapport with your subject. 

He's grateful now, for those lectures, as wrongheaded as they were, because those demotivating, dehumanizing tactics lead to prisoners who look and sound a lot like Kylo does. Humans are resilient, if someone can be unmade, surely they can be put back together. Hux doesn't let himself wonder what Snoke is going to say about it. None of that matters right now.

“I’m happy to listen to you, Kylo, but I don’t want to hear rubbish." Hux keeps his tone even, neither harsh nor effusive. “Do I make myself clear?”

"Yes," Kylo says.

"Very good.”

Kylo is struggling to keep his elbows at a perfect ninety-degree angle. Hux puts two fingers lightly under a bicep and Kylo straightens his posture.

“Just a little longer," Hux says. "Eyes on me. I know you're tired."

Kylo meets Hux's steady gaze with his own exhausted, desperate one. Hux makes him wait. He resumes his circling. 

"You don't have to care about, or even want to look after your body. Your feelings on the matter are not relevant. Firstly, a body is a precondition to life, so your entire thesis on bodily worth is incorrect. Secondly, this particular body is yours, and since you’re mine, and I want you healthy, you have to take care of yourself.”

Kylo's knuckles are white with the effort he's putting in to keep his arms up. He’s starting to pant for breath like he’s at the end of a battle, and he’s not alright, not by a long shot, but at least he’s present. He’s focusing on Hux, and the task he’s been given, and not on whatever horrors he’s got in his head.

"I'm not talking for the sake of hearing my own voice," Hux says sternly. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Yes," Kylo gasps. "Yes, sorry. I'm sorry." He’s about one second away from his muscles giving up. 

Hux waits that one second and then says, "Arms down now. Very good."

Kylo lowers his arms, but even then he's still shaking. He stands straighter though, shoulders back, head up, bolstered by succeeding, and at the smallest scraps of praise.

“You needn’t be sorry,” Hux says, picking up the previous thread of conversation. He stops in front of Kylo and puts his hand on Kylo’s chest, over his heart. “Contrary to what you might have been told, you are more than your connection to the Force. You are every part of you, and that includes the flesh part, and all the thinking parts of you. You're not just a witch, you're also a man.”

He can feel Kylo’s heart beating faster than usual. “Please,” Kylo says, brokenly.

It sounds an awful lot like he wants to say ‘stop’ but knows that’s not going to get him the relief he wants. Hux focuses on the matter in front of him and doesn’t wonder how long it’s been since Kylo felt he was allowed to say no.

Despite his outward calm, Hux is wracked by a sickening mixture of fear and rage. He can see the whole thing now, all the disparate pieces coming together. The trauma unrelated to battle Kylo suffered isn’t something from his past, although that’s when it started. Kylo is being subjected to an ongoing, calculated campaign to rob him of his bodily autonomy, self-worth, and ability to self-determine. 

It’s the most impressive long game Hux has ever seen. Snoke has painstakingly made himself an impossibly powerful, unquestioningly loyal devotee, who will do whatever he says, no matter how insane, dangerous, or suicidal. He could tell Kylo to cut off his own hand, and Kylo would probably do it, for his master. His master, who has been with him all his life, who gave him a place in the world after convincing him he would never find one. Who tells him his only measure of worth is his link to the Force. The master who now says he is weak, and can only be made whole if he does as he is told.

Hux had thought Snoke would disallow Kylo from any relationship because he wanted Kylo to focus on his training, and the conquest of the galaxy. Maybe because Snoke too believed in some Jedi-based concept of power through celibacy. It could be as simple as Snoke enjoying controlling Kylo. At most, Hux had thought Snoke wouldn’t like Kylo sleeping with his co-commander because it smacked of conspiracy. 

He knows now that it’s so much worse than that.

Without knowing it, Hux has been systematically working against Snoke. He encouraged Kylo to have hobbies, when Snoke would have him waiting for his command. He gave him work to do that had provable metrics for success, when Snoke wanted to be the sole arbiter of merit. He took Kylo into his bed when Snoke would have him so lonely and starved of human touch that being beaten would seem like a kindness.

Snoke tortured Kylo for two months when he thought Kylo was simply fucking a man he didn’t even like. There is no clever solution for Hux to find, and there is no way to get Snoke to allow them their relationship. When Snoke finds out the truth, he’s going to have Hux put to death. He’ll probably make Kylo do it, just to prove the point.

It doesn't matter if Hux pulls Kylo free of this particular attack. Soon, Kylo will be alone again. It's a waste of time to even try. 

Still, he cups the back of Kylo’s neck with his free hand and squeezes gently. He's had a year of practice, he knows how to talk Kylo down.

“It's alright," Hux says. He kisses Kylo lightly on the mouth. "We don’t have to talk about that right now. I'm just happy you're here."

“I dreamed this,” Kylo says, slurred with exhaustion. “But I know it was real, too. It wasn’t just a trick, or a joke. It used to be real.”

“I promise you, this is very real. You’re here, with me, in our quarters on _Finalizer_. Can’t you read my mind and see?”

Kylo shakes his head just a little, not enough to dislodge Hux’s hand. “I’d hurt you,” Kylo says. “I'm out of balance." Kylo’s swaying in place, and Hux is pretty sure if he doesn’t get off his feet, he’s going to fall down.

“That's alright, the rest can wait. I told you to come back to me, and you did,” Hux says. “I didn’t put any stipulations on your return. You did exactly what I said. Come lie down, I want you in bed.”

Kylo manages not to trip over his own feet walking the short distance to the bed but Hux can see the way he’s breaking out in a cold sweat, pupils rapidly changing size as his blood pressure drops and he has to fight dizziness and syncope. Kylo lies down on his back, swallowing thickly. He isn’t hard; Hux doubts Kylo has the energy for it, never mind the fact that he’s also not exactly in the right frame of mind.

Hux lowers the lights to ten percent and takes off his jacket, setting it on a chair before sitting on the mattress next to Kylo. Kylo's eyes are dark as black holes, except for the golden ring reflecting on his irises, although Hux isn't entirely sure what light they're reflecting.

"Close your eyes," Hux instructs and Kylo does as he's told. "Good. Keep your hands on the bed."

He leans over Kylo and kisses him, slow and thorough. Kylo’s hands twitch on the sheets but he keeps them by his sides, instead, his back bows up as he tries to press into the kiss without moving his head or hands or feet. Hux strokes his hair, down over the curves of his chest and side, just as slow and thorough as his kiss, more gentling than arousing. Gradually Kylo relaxes back onto the mattress, his overworked body finally allowed to rest.

“I miss you,” Kylo says. “I’m glad I got to see you. I hope you stay for a while.”

“I’m real, Kylo. We’re both here. Together. On _Finalizer_ , in our rooms, with our loth-cat snoring in your helmet. This isn’t a dream. You can sleep. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“It’s harder when you say that and it’s not true.” Kylo’s voice cracks sadly.

Hux takes a deep breath in and out. “Would a dream tell you you’re a pain in my arse and you need a haircut? How about if I instruct you to go the kriff to sleep because I want you rested so we can fuck in the morning because I missed your enormous cock? Is that something I say in your dreams?”

Kylo opens his eyes, lashes wet. “Yeah,” he says. “You used to. But mostly now you’re sad. When I see you, you’re tired, and you work too much. I try to talk to you but you can’t hear me. And then I’m back in my body and you’re not there.”

Hux has no idea if Kylo has been projecting across the galaxy to actually see him while they’ve been apart, or if his imagination and knowledge of Hux’s tendencies are just upsettingly accurate. He hopes Kylo hasn’t been reaching out to him—to a man as Force sensitive as a boot who could never hear him or reach back. Better to have been dreaming. Better for Hux, so he can feel less like he’s spent weeks and weeks doing nothing when he knew that his inaction was wrong.

“I know you can’t believe it now,” Hux says. “That’s okay. Close your eyes." He wants to be the kind of man who can casually use a pet name but he can't stop overthinking it. In any case, Kylo wouldn't believe it was real coming from him. "Worst case scenario, I’m here while you dream. Best case, I’m here when you wake up. Nothing you can do but rest…”

Kylo’s eyes shut again and his head tips slightly to the side as he gets comfortable. He snores like a chainsaw when he’s on his back but Hux isn’t going to try and move him now.

“I miss you,” Kylo says again, but he’s fading, and then he’s out.

Whether he's asleep or unconscious, Hux can't say. Hux is sorely tempted to get in the bed with him, but there’s no time for Hux to lay about being glad Kylo came back basically in one piece. He gets Millicent from her little nest in Kylo’s helmet and deposits her on the bed, instead. She beeps happily at him and makes herself at home tucked up in the curve of Kylo's neck, pressed against his head and shoulder, her steady purring a perfect ward against nightmares. Kylo’s always had nightmares, but Hux suspects they’re going to be a lot worse and more frequent for a while.

“Keep him company,” Hux tells Millicent as he leaves the bedroom. After summoning a med droid to look Kylo over—he’s a little dehydrated but otherwise in decent condition—Hux goes about the rest of his day. He reads reports, and replies to messages, and eats dinner. Then he makes sure his affairs are in order. 

He’s not supposed to have Millicent, but he trusts Phasma to take care of her, if Kylo can’t. His files are always orderly, and there’s not much else he cares about. Starkiller will be built with or without him. Kylo...Kylo will endure, as he always has.

Hux strips down to his shorts and undershirt and gets into the bed, wrapping his arms around the slack weight of Kylo's body. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep, but the next thing he knows is the feeling of Kylo moving next to him, and it’s a new day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Kylo returns from his “training” injured and suffering from dissociation. Hux considers what happened to him to be torture. The injuries are briefly catalogued. Exactly what happened to Kylo is not discussed.
> 
> Hux thinks about interrogation techniques used when you don’t have a mind-reader to hand. He reflects that he uses the method of building rapport, but some of his colleagues use methods that are what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation.” Aka torture. Some of these tactics are listed but not discussed in any detail.
> 
> NOTES:  
> The signs Ravage uses are a combination of ASL and BSL (I've learned a very small amount of both because I lived in the UK and North America, but I'm by no means even conversational in either).
> 
> The first sign is ASL and means ‘alone.’ The second sign is BSL and means ‘own.’ Is Ravage saying that Kylo owns Hux, and is he using ‘solo’ as his name marker? Yes, and yes. Does Kylo know that his knights are calling him Solo? No. No he does not.
> 
> The two finger V-tap on the palm is BSL for ‘virgin.’
> 
> The circle over the chest is both ASL and BSL for ‘sorry.’
> 
> The fist on the palm means ‘help’ in ASL and is a directional sign.


	7. The Starkiller

When Hux wakes up, he finds Kylo is sitting with his back against the wall, knees tucked against his chest, one arm wrapped around them. He’s got one of Hux’s cigarras between his lips and he’s struggling to light it. He’s still shaky and he’s failing to make the starter catch. Despite all that, Kylo looks better. Some of the hollow, pinched quality to his face is gone, and the dark circles aren’t so dark; likely because he’s properly hydrated. 

Hux scrubs a hand over his jaw, scratching at the stubble coming in. “Hello, I’m awake,” he says stupidly before his brain fully reboots and he recalls the previous night. “That’s not tabacc,” Hux says in warning as Kylo finally gets the starter going and the cigarra lit. 

“I’ve been awake for a while,” Kylo says, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. “Thinking.” He’s frowning, but not angry; it's some other complicated combination of emotions that furrow his brow and turn his mouth down.

Hux realizes there’s already one cigarra butt in the ashtray that wasn’t there before. He hauls himself into a sitting position, feeling like he’s behind the curve and not sure how to get caught up again. 

“And getting high,” Hux says, scooting across the mattress until Kylo lets go of his own knees and uncurls enough to let Hux put an arm around his shoulders. Hux tucks him in close and presses a kiss to Kylo's hair. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m trying not to. Feel, I mean.” Kylo twitches the fingers holding the cigarra. He tries for a smile but it’s very bitter and his voice wobbles a little when he says, “‘S why the second one.”

Hux wonders if it would be unkind to ask Kylo to hold his peace until he’s had a cup of caf and a stim and maybe ten minutes to wake up. It’s a lot, realizing you’re going to be executed and trying to support someone after their torture when you haven't had any caf.

“Praxisuh and Ravage Ren came to see me,” Hux says because some days there isn’t time to brace for impact and he’s a military man, he can bear this. “They were worried.” Caring about someone else is miserable. The Sith had it right. It’s a weakness, and it’s horrible. “Millicent cried for three weeks looking for you. Not me. I scarcely noticed you were gone.”

Kylo settles more comfortably into Hux’s side. For a big man he’s very good at making himself small. “Has it been...how long have I been gone?”

Hux knuckles sleep out of the corner of his eye. “Two months. Kylo. Are you alright—no, stupid question. Do you know this is real?”

Kylo shrugs. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell.”

Hux isn’t prepared to argue that point. “You’re probably hungry,” he says hopefully. “I’ll get a droid to bring you something.”

“Just a nutritional shake. I’ve been fasting, won’t be able to keep anything else down.”

Hux closes his eyes for a moment and then, very calmly, grabs his datapad from the bedside drawer and pings a droid to bring them a nutritional shake and whatever meal the officer's mess is serving. “You’ve been starved,” Hux says tightly. “There’s a difference.”

Kylo breathes out more cigarra smoke, listless and disengaged. “The body is—”

“If you tell me one more time that the body is worthless, or irrelevant, or any other idiocy, I will make you tea just the way you like it, bring it to you, and pour it on you, and see how disconnected you are with a lapful of scalding bog water.” Hux tries not to dig his fingers into Kylo’s arm but he’s struggling to hold his anger in check. “Your body. Your body requires food, and sleep, and care. You know how I hate repeating myself." 

“Bossy,” Kylo says, but he’s more alert, more present. He’s always been happiest when Hux makes his expectations clear. Probably because Hux has worked hard to only demand things that are achievable and measurable. Fucking Snoke, he's influenced every part of Kylo's life. There's nothing that's only Kylo's. Not his name, not even his face. Everything is tainted by what Snoke has done to him.

“Always," Hux says, thinking about how Kylo feels in his arms. How much he likes the weight of him, the heat of his skin, the soft places untouched by scars, pale hidden places between his thighs, in the creases of his arms, behind his ears. 

“You missed telling me what to do.” Kylo’s smile looks a lot more real this time, even if it is barely there. “You want the rest of this?” he asks, holding out the cigarra. “I’m already out of balance, shouldn’t’ve lit a second.”

Hux takes the cigarra. It’s a bit early for him, but waste not want not. He takes a drag, distracted by wanting to prove to Kylo that he's real, they’re both real, and for this moment at least Kylo is safe. Then he comes to his senses. “No, kriff, I have to get ready for my shift.”

Kylo abruptly fists his hand in Hux’s undershirt and kisses him. Kylo tastes of stale smoke, and they both need to brush their teeth, but Hux puts the datapad down, stubs out the last of the cigarra, and gives Kylo his full attention. Kylo cradles Hux’s face in his gentle, careful hands with the bitten nails, and scarred knuckles. The first part of himself he showed to Hux.

“I missed _you_ , you wretched thing,” Hux says. He leans in for another kiss, rediscovering Kylo’s sharp teeth, and his generous mouth, and the way his breath stutters with pleasure when Hux pulls on his hair.

They’re interrupted some time later by the door chiming.

“I’ll get it,” Kylo says. “Comm Lieutenant Jenji, take the day off. Tell her we have urgent… urgent…” He gets out of bed, taking the sheet with him and wrapping it around his waist. “I don’t know. Urgent something.”

He doesn’t wait for Hux to reply, just shuffles to the door to get their food.

Hux unlocks his datapad again. Unless he instantaneously develops time travel, he’s already late. He pulls up his schedule just to see how bad it’s going to be, and discovers there’s nothing at all, for the entire day. It’s not a mistake, either. The next day is full, and the rest of the calendar is complete. But this day has been cleared.

“What?” Kylo says, back with a tray for Hux and a container of beige slurry for himself. He puts the tray on Hux’s lap, takes a sip of the shake, and grimaces. Hux hasn’t had to have a nutritional shake since the last time he came up underweight on his physical. It’s a large part of the reason he hasn’t let that happen again. They’re revolting.

“Jenji went mad with power and already gave me the day off,” Hux says, showing Kylo the calendar before tossing it aside. He hates eating in bed. It’s very unhygienic. Kylo’s already getting comfortable next to him though, and Hux can’t bring himself to say anything. 

“You should get her something nice,” Kylo says. “Do you do that in the First Order? Other places give their subordinates gifts for going above and beyond.”

Hux wonders what ‘other places’ Kylo is thinking about. It could be anything. For all he knows, Hutts are very generous with their underlings and that’s what Kylo is referring to. “We don’t. But there are ways around that,” Hux says. “You’re outside most of the chain of command, if you wanted to do it for me. She’s mad for trashy Republican romance novels.”

“Really? Lieutenant Loya Jenji? The pocket-sized lieutenant who’s more of a First Order fanatic than you?”

The breakfast tray has the usual combination of creamed meat, toast, and vegetable juice. Hux isn’t a morning person on the best of days and stress upsets his stomach. However, the tray also has a piping hot cup of caf. He inhales half the cup gratefully. 

While he’s nursing the rest of the caf, Hux says, “She likes the ones with Madalorians falling for some kidnapped person with an important political position; royalty, trade house scion, senators, and the like. Or the ones with Jedi bodyguarding some person at risk of kidnapping with an important political position and then falling for them. Officially, they're seditious literature, but I’ve flipped through one and _honestly_. If Jenji wants to read about a fictional monk so overcome with passion for the lord of some made-up trade house that he throws away his vows so they can fuck on a beach, then good for her.”

Kylo chokes on a mouthful of nutritional shake. “That’s specific.”

“I’m told these things tend to be,” Hux says, picking at his toast.

They eat in silence, but for the first time in two months, the silence isn’t emptiness. Hux thinks he might be happy to just sit, not talking, with Kylo for quite a while. It’s not that he doesn’t miss the sound of Kylo’s voice—the way his accent changes depending on what he’s talking about, the strange little anecdotes he shares, the comfort of rehashing old debates neither of them care about winning—but the silence is nice too. Kylo has never been able to let a conversation hang, it’s the easiest way to make him talk, but he can do this; just being with someone without having to say anything. The little spaces between, the seemingly unimportant moments. Kylo is surprisingly good at those.

Kylo is three-quarters through the slurry when he abruptly puts it on the floor beside the bed. “If this is real then I’m not wasting my time on that shit. I want you to fuck me.”

Hux nearly drops his fork, but manages to put it down and wipe his lips with a napkin. They have the whole day. He hasn’t had a day off like this in years. Not on the ship. When he’s on the ship, he’s always on call. But if he knows Jenji at all, she’s cut off his comm, and no one is getting past her. He’s on borrowed time. Why not do what he wants? 

But Kylo wilts, like Hux wasn’t taking the briefest of moments to think about having the entire day to do nothing but fuck and lie around in bed, or anything else that takes their fancy. “It was just an idea.”

“Go brush your teeth,” Hux says. “I need a moment to decide how I want you.”

Kylo rewinds the sheet around himself and heads off to the refresher. It gives Hux a chance to finish his caf, get rid of the tray, and try to make a plan. He does want to have sex with Kylo, but Kylo tends to get emotional after being fucked and he’s already on the edge. Whether it’s going to be a good emotion and make him feel better, or not, is about as predictable as a game of Roonan roulette, and getting it wrong is probably about as dangerous. 

“We don’t have to,” Kylo says again, when he’s back from the refresher.

“What part of deciding how I want you didn’t you understand?” Hux says gently. He has one of Kylo’s hair ties and he tosses it to him. “Come here, you great idiot. I always want you.”

Kylo looks at the tie. It takes him a second to register what it is and then he’s scraping his hair back into a bun, chin down, looking at Hux through his eyelashes. “Being here. There. Wherever I am. It hurt. When thought I was with you I could still… it still hurt.”

“Does it hurt now?” Hux says. He’s not hard and is a little worried he’s not going to get erect. It's going to be more of a challenge if Kylo keeps talking about being tortured.

“No,” Kylo says. “Yes. It’s better.”

“Good,” Hux says. “I want you comfortable.” He motions for Kylo to come closer, and Kylo swings a leg over Hux, straddling him, and sits in his lap, the sheet falling to the floor in a heap.

Hux lies back until they’re both mostly horizontal, encouraging Kylo to stretch out on top of him. It takes a while for Kylo to straighten out and put his weight on Hux, but Hux is happy to linger in the moment. Kylo doesn’t seem to mind that Hux hasn’t brushed his teeth or shaved, and the longer Hux kisses him and doesn’t do more than touch Kylo’s hair, face, and shoulders, the more Kylo relaxes. 

Eventually Kylo is comfortable, or at least comfortable enough to get frustrated with the shorts and A-shirt Hux still has on. He is more of a hindrance than a help in getting those few items off, but when Hux is naked, Kylo finally stops holding back.

Kylo folds into Hux, grasping at him, seemingly at random. He clutches at Hux’s ribs, smooths his hands over his hips, and digs bruises into his forearms, unable to decide what he wants to hold onto. He presses his face into Hux’s neck and then his armpit and then his sternum, like he’s trying to breathe every inch of him in, biting and licking at whatever his mouth touches.

It’s odd, certainly, more like Millicent with a pile of lothmint than anything sexual, but it’s not bad, either so Hux submits to being manhandled and chewed on for a bit. Eventually all of Kylo’s shifting around turns more deliberate. 

Hux hadn’t felt bereft of human contact until he had it, and it was taken away again. He presses up against Kylo, pulling him up by the hair so he can kiss him. He doesn’t want to think about what happened to Kylo, or what’s going to happen to both of them. He wants this: the feeling of Kylo’s bottom lip caught between his teeth, the scratch of hair on their legs rasping together, Kylo’s absolutely breathtaking ass flexing under his hands as he rubs against Hux, clumsier than usual, but there. Still within Hux’s reach.

“Did you still want me to fuck you?” Hux asks. He’s hard now, body very much interested in the naked man on top of him.

“Yeah. Yes.” Kylo’s gripping Hux’s hips too hard, nearly breaking the skin. Hux hadn’t noticed he was missing the nail on his left pinkie, but apparently neither had Kylo, because he obviously didn’t apply bacta to the injury last night.

“Get the lubricant for me,” Hux says, lifting a knee just enough to prevent Kylo from doing something stupid like trying to take his cock dry.

Kylo gulps air and leans over Hux and across the mattress so he can reach the bottle of slick in the bedside drawer. If the level of lubricant hasn’t depleted in any noticeable way since Kylo left, that’s no one’s business but Hux’s.

Hux takes his time, as much as he can when Kylo still can’t settle, even with two fingers up his ass. Kylo’s impatient and he takes Hux’s cock too fast, teeth clenched and face turned away. He’s not like Hux, he doesn’t like that kind of roughness.

It gets worse, if anything. Kylo’s good with his body, he’s an amazing fuck, but all his usual grace and rhythm is gone. One second he’s going slow, then fast, and there’s even less control over how hard or how deep he’s taking Hux’s cock. It’s not good sex. They’ve passed mediocre and are now at bad sex.

Hux gives Kylo a few minutes, in the hopes he’ll make a decision. But it continues to be uncomfortable and awkward until Kylo’s only half-hard, and Hux is starting to lose his erection, friction be damned.

“Stop, Kylo, for pity’s sake.” Hux pushes at Kylo’s hips until he gets off. Hux grabs the pillows and piles them all together against the wall so he can lean back against them, reclining more than sitting up or lying down. “Are you getting anything out of this at all?" 

He pulls Kylo closer until Kylo’s lying on top of him again. It presses Kylo’s cock between them and puts them face-to-face in an embrace, as opposed to Kylo riding Hux. 

“This is supposed to be fun,” Hux reminds him.

He presses one hand to the small of Kylo’s back, the other buried in the thick knot of his hair. Hux rolls his hips, his cock sliding into Kylo steadily but not hurriedly. He takes his time, letting Kylo adjust, kissing him through it. When Kylo’s settled in his lap, he doesn’t try anything fancy, not even really thrusting, just encouraging Kylo to move with him. It’s more like what they were doing before, rocking together more than real fucking. It's not going to get Hux off, but it does feel good. Kylo’s cock fattens up again, sliding hot and thick against Hux’s stomach and hip.

“That’s better,” Hux says. “Does that feel nice?”

“I can’t read you,” Kylo mumbles. “I can’t tell if you like this or not.”

Hux kisses the tip of Kylo’s ear. “Is that why you’re all over the place? You could just ask, you know.” He works a hand between them until he can reach one of Kylo’s nipples, rolling it between his fingertips. “Of course I like fucking you, how could I not?” He pinches, admonishing. “I asked if you feel good, not if you could read my mind.”

Kylo gasps. “I do,” he says.

Hux is more than happy to have sex without a single word exchanged, but Kylo likes to talk, and likes to hear him talk. It’s not something Hux considers himself to be especially good at, but he’s not incapable of producing a little entertaining filth, and Kylo is easy to please. 

“Excellent,” Hux says. “That’s all I want right now, for you to sit right here, on my cock, and rub yourself off against me while I play with your tits.”

“Armitage,” Kylo complains, face flushing with embarrassment. He moves against Hux with renewed purpose though, so Hux knows he likes it.

They stay like that, Kylo doing his very best for Hux, until the need to be good takes over and he forgets about whichever one of their many troubles was bothering him. Kylo braces himself against the mattress, spreads his knees a little, and then they have it. 

Hux keeps fucking him with the same, steady rhythm and Kylo moves with him, instead of fighting it. He takes Hux’s cock in deep strokes that leave him panting and desperate. Hux licks his own fingers, getting them wet, so he can properly rub and pinch and tug at Kylo’s chest.

“You’re always so good for me,” Hux says. “You’re lovely. I want you to feel good. I like making you feel good.”

Kylo moans into their kiss, grabbing at his cock, and comes all over Hux. 

Before Kylo can get any more bright ideas, Hux pulls out. “That’s perfect,” Hux says. “That’s what I wanted.”

Kylo really is lovely. His dark eyes are nearly black with arousal, his mouth open wetly as he catches his breath. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” Kylo says and curls over Hux so he can lick his own come off Hux’s chest.

“Ngh,” Hux says intelligently, because Kylo starts jerking him off and, stars, Hux missed the feeling of lightsaber calluses on the sensitive head of his cock.

It’s been a while since Hux bothered to masturbate, he hasn’t really been in the mood, so Kylo’s barely had time to clean up his own come, before Hux is sticky with ejaculate again. Kylo strokes him through his orgasm until he’s finished, and then immediately starts licking that up too.

“A washcloth would work better,” Hux says.

Kylo kisses him, spitting his mouthful of come into his mouth, and Hux makes a wordless sound of mild disgust.

“You know I hate that,” Hux says barely understandable around Kylo’s tongue, as Kylo kisses the horrible mess back out of his mouth. He never bothers to stop Kylo from doing it though, and he does it fairly often. Probably the complaints would have more impact if he ever followed up on them.

Kylo doesn’t reply, just lingers there until most of the taste is gone, and the orgasmic languor is setting in. He settles down with his head on the pillow next to Hux, half lying on him, face turned into the curve of Hux’s neck.

“Did you ask me to fuck you because you were afraid to put your cock in me if you couldn’t read my mind?” Hux says, shoving a little at Kylo until he’s a pleasant, evenly distributed weight, and not several bony angles all digging into sensitive areas.

“No. A bit.” He bites gently at Hux’s shoulder. “I don’t know. Usually I’d rather...but…”

“Alright,” Hux says, taking Kylo’s hair down so he can comb it with his fingers. He actually missed the feeling of sweaty, tangled hair between his fingers, go figure. “You don’t have to twist yourself up about it. Stars know I enjoy a cock in my arse. No reason to get bashful just because you occasionally enjoy the same.”

Kylo has managed to suck a bruise onto Hux’s shoulder before he finally says, “If you were an important person at risk of kidnapping, I’d throw away my vows and fuck you on a beach.”

“I am an important person at risk of kidnapping," Hux says, but he's charmed. "And I don't need you starting with that seditious nonsense, as well as Jenji.”

Kylo's hands tighten on him. "I'm serious," he says. "Not the beach thing, but—"

Hux kisses his forehead, right at his hairline. "Kylo, if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you're always serious. We have all day, don’t get started on destiny and sedition and vows this early. I haven’t even had a second cup of caf yet."

Kylo sighs, but settles back down. Hux is hoping he’ll fall asleep again, he probably needs it, but Kylo has always struggled with nightmares and insomnia and it’s hard to get him to sleep unless he’s half-dead on his feet. Sure enough, Kylo’s not even dozing, and before long he’s tracing some kind of pattern on Hux’s ribs and muttering to himself. It’s not really audible as more than a rumble, but Hux thinks he hears something about passion and strength.

Hux nudges him. “What’s that?” 

“It’s the Sith code. To remind myself of things I had forgotten.” Kylo licks at the sweat drying on Hux’s skin, stopping his pattern drawing. 

“Are you thinking of converting?” Hux says. He’d also missed the way Kylo’s big hands look on his narrow hips, casually possessive. He puts his own hand over Kylo’s. He’s not holding it, he just wants to feel it there, Hux thinks a little defensively, although Kylo said he can’t snoop in his head right now and can’t hear his rationalisations.

“It’s not a religion, and you know it, not like how you mean,” Kylo says. “And, no, I don’t believe in most of their philosophies. But… the code is a useful mantra.”

“Will you tell me?”

Kylo wiggles around until he can comfortably look at Hux. “Peace is a lie,” he says, his cultured, gentle voice low in solemn recitation. “There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.”

“Well,” Hux says. He never quite knows what to say about Kylo’s faith, or the beliefs of others. None of it has any meaning to him. “That’s surprisingly intelligible. Not my sort of philosophy, but at least it tracks."

“I’ve always liked it,” Kylo admits. “It’s simple. Clear.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Everything else has always been so complicated and antithetical to my connection to the Force. I hated my Jedi training. Luke kept saying I would learn, that I would get better, but nothing about being a Jedi made sense to how I connect to the Force. It felt like he was trying to sand me down, just so I’d fit.”

“For purely selfish reasons, I appreciate your lack of desire to become a celibate recluse,” Hux says but Kylo doesn’t so much as crack an ironic smirk. A sense of foreboding begins to creep over Hux.

Kylo sounds tired in his soul as he says, "When I first went to Snoke, he showed me ways to access power I never knew I had. But now he’s telling me I’m weak, that I’m not fully giving myself to the dark side. I’ve worn myself down to the bone trying to live up to the expectations of others.”

Hux’s mouth goes very dry. “Kylo…” He knows he’s a dead man walking, but if Kylo doesn’t stop saying things like that, Hux isn’t going to be the only one Snoke executes.

“Listen,” Kylo says, intense and deadly calm. “You make me feel like I can stop carving parts off in order to be enough. When I’m with you, that’s when I’m strongest.” He strokes his fingertips down the side of Hux’s face and his touch crackles with a hundred tiny pinpricks of static shock. “Give me a few days. We’re not going to die like this.”

Hux shivers. “I thought you couldn’t read my mind.”

“I couldn't.” Kylo’s smile is slow to come but when it does there’s something foriegn about it.

Hux has a mental scorecard where he tallies every time he's seen Kylo's crooked, enormous smile. He didn't do it on purpose, not at first, but somewhere around the sixth or seventh occasion, Hux noticed he'd been keeping count and decided to go with it. Now, though, the curve of Kylo's mouth is calculating and it feels dangerous. Whatever part of Hux wanted to count smiles like victories, doesn't want to include this one.

“I told you,” Kylo says, humming with energy, as if there’s some kind of charge building up in him. “You make me stronger.”

They have a little time before Snoke finds out Kylo lied about the nature of his relationship with Hux. Snoke won’t be expecting Kylo to recover from his training right away. He underestimates Kylo, and that’s what’s going to buy them their grace period. Or, at least, that’s what Kylo says.

Hux works, and keeps up appearances, but he can barely make himself choke down half-rations and he can’t sleep at all without medicating himself. There’s a constant ache in his jaw from clenching his teeth, and his stomach is a solid knot of anxiety with no relief. Twice he finds himself bent over in the refresher, dry-heaving, cold sweat soaking his shirt. The last time he was in this state, he was waiting for Phasma to poison his father. He packs a go bag, unpacks it, and packs it again.

Kylo is quiet. He trains, and meditates, and eats like he’s trying to bulk back up as fast as humanly possible. When he’s not doing any of that, he haunts the observation rooms, spending hours staring out into space. He disappears to Ilum for an entire day and while he's there Hux is informed that the meteorological scanners are malfunctioning. A huge swath of forest has been torn down by a storm no one saw. The trees are uprooted, smashed to splinters, gouged and blackened by lightning. Hux remembers what Phasma said and just tells the techs that the scanners are fine, it’s just Force-nonsense. They relax. Hux does not.

Kylo returns to the ship. He’s as energized as Hux is exhausted; a hyper-focused, manic sort of energy. 

Hux picks at his evening meal and watches Kylo open up his lightsaber to perform maintenance on its innards. It’s fascinating, and Hux always has some new question about the weapon, but he’s stuck in a cycle of stims and sleeping pills and he’s on a downward swing, drooping in his chair.

“Ilum was a holy place,” Kylo says. “Before Darth Sidious mined it to build the Death Stars.” A tiny red spark jumps between the kyber crystal and his thumb. He doesn't seem to notice.

Hux forces down another mouthful of synthesized vegetables. “So why were you ripping up the local flora?”

"What I did is nothing compared to the desecration that has already taken place."

Hux sighs. Kylo likes to say portentous things now and again, mostly because he's incredibly dramatic, but it seems like the frequency has drastically increased. Before he left it was down to once a week, maybe less. Now everything he says sounds stilted and ominous. Whatever he's doing to prepare, it's affecting him.

Kylo has a smear of grease under one eye and a screwdriver behind one ear. Channeling his inner dark lord or not, walking lighting rod or not, Kylo is home and Hux wants him. He figures he has about a half hour before he passes out. "I'm going to bed. You could come with me,” he says.

He’s a little surprised when Kylo puts his tools down and does follow him. Kylo doesn’t get undressed though, just curls up on top of the covers. Hux had vaguely been thinking about trying for a quickie before the sleeping pills fully kick in, but Kylo only kisses him, slow and lazy, easy like they're not facing their reckoning. Kylo stays there with him until Hux falls asleep between one kiss and the next.

Long before his alarm is set to go off, Hux jerks upright in bed, perfectly awake, like something had startled him. His heart is racing, adrenaline shocking through him. It’s more effective than a stim to get him up and moving.

He pulls on a pair of Kylo's training pants and goes looking for him, though he doesn't have to look very far. Kylo is sitting cross-legged in his meditation room, floating a foot off the ground. He’s taken the Orb of Darth Harrow out of storage and the artifact, or device, or whatever it is, is in pieces, all the interlocking parts separated and orbiting around Kylo like moons. Hux has seen him poking at the Orb before, but it’s never come apart like that. 

For the first time since Kylo brought the damn thing onto the ship, Hux can feel something. Not quite like a vibration in the air, or a note played at a frequency Hux can’t quite hear, or a build-up of static, but similar. It's just on the very edge of his perception, whatever it is, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He goes to the other end of their quarters, as far away as he can get without leaving, and discovers Millicent is hiding in a closet, growling unhappily.

“Let’s just leave him to it, shall we?” Hux says to her, and doesn’t try to coax her out. He half wishes it was acceptable to go sit with her.

He tries to focus on reports, but he keeps getting distracted, looking up, certain someone is standing right behind him. It’s a deeply uncomfortable sensation and he gets nothing useful accomplished. Instead, he mostly worries about how many hours Kylo has been awake, and what he’s been up to while Hux was in bed.

The sensation ends as abruptly as it started. Millicent stops growling and emerges cautiously from the closet. She twines around Hux’s ankles, chittering her displeasure.

“Can’t say I cared much for it either,” Hux says to her. “From now on, that thing is staying out of our living space.”

Millicent shrieks and takes off back for the closet like her tail’s on fire just as Kylo appears in the doorway. His hands are full of twisted, blackened metal scraps which he dumps into the waste chute. 

“Did you just put a dark artifact into the ship’s trash compactor?” Hux says glancing between the closet and Kylo. He can hear hissing from somewhere behind their outerwear. 

“It’s used up,” Kylo says. His teeth are stained red and his lips are sliced. “Don’t worry about Millicent; she didn’t like it when I took off my helmet, she’ll get used to this.”

Hux wets his own lips nervously. “What is it she needs to get used to?”

“I took Harrow’s power from the Orb into myself,” Kylo says. “She can sense it in me.”

Nothing about that seems like a good idea to Hux. If it was putting out that vague sense of disquiet, and now it’s in Kylo, Hux can understand why Millicent doesn’t want to go anywhere near him. “Did you...eat it?”

Kylo spits blood into the sink. “Yes.”

“Is that wise? Isn’t the Orb dangerous?”

“I’m stronger than its former master was, it can’t hurt me.” Kylo leans against the counter, arms crossed, and gives Hux an appraising look. “You were right, by the way.”

“Of course I was,” Hux says automatically. “What about?”

“Snoke. He sent me back here because I was unable to continue the training. I thought it was because I failed. He told me I failed.” Kylo doesn’t seem angry or upset by this. If anything he’s worryingly calm.

Hux usually enjoys being told he’s right. He is not enjoying this. “I see.”

“You told me Snoke lied to me, and I wouldn’t listen, but you were right. What he did stripped me of everything I had achieved. He made me weak and then blamed me for that weakness.” For a moment Kylo looks very hurt and confused, but it passes over him like a shadow, and then the dangerous calm is back.

“He’s afraid of you,” Hux says. “He can’t bear the thought of your power surpassing his own.”

Kylo’s jaw tightens. “Just like Skywalker.”

“It might be time to stop apprenticing yourself to people, considering your track record,” Hux says, disquiet making him waspish and mean. He can’t say he’s sorry that Kylo has finally seen the truth about Snoke’s manipulations. Kylo’s realization might have come too late to save Hux, but he could still get away. “You can’t stay here, you know that, don’t you? Not that you’ve ever had much interest in the First Order but—”

“Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t,” Kylo says. “Snoke would never let me go. And, what? I’m supposed to let him kill you and then flee? Run away first and let him kill you afterwards? No.” He pushes off from the counter and waves for Hux to follow him. “Get dressed, I want to show you something. It’s easier if I show you.”

“Not everyone enjoys cryptic proclamations,” Hux says, but with a last, worried glance at the closet, he does what Kylo wants.

Kylo’s quiet as Hux follows him through _Finalizer’s_ corridors. Hux can’t stop thinking about Millicent hiding in fear, and he can’t stop wondering what it was, exactly, that Kylo ate.

“It wasn’t metal like the rest of the Orb,” Kylo says, as they pass by a trooper patrol. “The inside was a crystal, a bit like an iron flower.”

Hux has seen iron flowers before. They’re made of a mineral that forms in tiny clusters of stalagmites, common in the mines of Karnten, and isn’t useful, or valuable. It’s also inedible.

“It wasn't actually an iron flower,” Kylo says.

“If I wanted to have a conversation, I would say something out loud,” Hux snaps and then says, “I don’t care if it was an iron flower, or kyber, or some other bit of rock. What if it makes you sick? Or worse."

Kylo brushes the back of Hux’s hand with his own. It’s about as much physical contact as they can risk in public. “You really think that’s what gets me?”

“Famous last words,” Hux mutters, but bumps his hand into Kylo’s.

Kylo takes him to the nearest observation lounge. It’s not one of the bigger rooms, available for any of the crew to use, and there’s nothing in it but a few benches. Hux waits, while Kylo locks the door and takes off his helmet, discarding it on one of the benches.

“I’ve lived in space almost my entire adult life,” Hux says. “I’m not sure what you wanted to show me, but I promise you I’ve seen all that before.” He waves a hand at the view.

“Funny,” Kylo says. He tosses his gloves next to his helmet and then shrugs out of his tunic. Once he’s rolled up his shirtsleeves, he goes to the middle of the room and sits on the floor. Kylo holds out a hand to Hux. “C’mere.”

Hux grumbles, but does it anyway, although there are perfectly good benches _right there_. Kylo shuffles them around until Hux is sitting in front of him, Kylo wrapped around him, chin on Hux’s shoulder. The floor is cold, and if they sit there too long, Hux is pretty sure his ass is going to go numb, but for the moment it’s not terrible.

“I know what we need to do next,” Kylo says. “Some of it is hard to explain, so I’m going to show you a few things, and then we’ll talk.”

“Alright,” Hux says, not sure what he’s agreeing to.

“I’m going to try and connect to you, through the Force. That way you can see what I see.”

“You’re welcome to try...whatever it is you want to try,” Hux says. “But you’re the one who said I had less sensitivity than a clod of dirt.”

“Just relax. Close your eyes.”

They sit together, and it’s nice. Hux isn’t sure what’s supposed to be happening, but there are worse things than spending a few quiet moments with Kylo. Kylo sighs happily and Hux realizes they’re breathing in synch, Kylo’s steady heartbeat against his back. It’s peaceful.

“Try not to fight me,” Kylo says.

All of a sudden, Hux is being pulled up and out of his body. He can feel Kylo there with him, both of them still sitting on the floor of the observation room, both of them suspended together, consciousnesses expanding beyond their bodies. Hux vaguely understands that what he’s seeing is not quite the same as what Kylo does, but that he’s being shown some of it, able to get a glimpse, with Kylo as a conduit. 

Then they’re moving, or rather Kylo is directing their consciousnesses out of the room they’re in, reaching out through the hum of _Finalizer_. Kylo shows him the cheerful bend of transparisteel, the stoic solidity of durasteel, the tidy blocks of binary that are droids going about their business. There are bright lumps of matter in neat rows, coloured tendrils rising like steam out from the light and fading away. Hux realizes he’s looking at Stormtroopers dreaming, and then he’s being pulled outside the ship, rising into the dark.

Hux can see arcs of gravity, pulling from so many directions. Each bend, each thread, warping spacetime in ways he can’t begin to understand. He can feel the breathing of stars and planets, the exhale of gases and the inhale of cosmic rays. And there is...it’s not singing, not really, and yet, still a song. Struck bells of a planet being born; the last sonorous note of a collapsing star fading away; the secrets whispered by a black hole like a siren, come closer, come closer, and the susurrus of light swallowed up.

Kylo turns their focus to a nearby pulsar. Back in the observation room, Hux grips Kylo’s forearm, because he knows this star as PSR-237828.359, a source of electromagnetic and ultra-dense radiation, but not especially valuable, as stars go. He’d considered feeding it to Starkiller, but the Dassal system has a G-type main-sequence star that is infinitely more stable and has far less magnetic variability. And that’s about the last time he thought about PSR-237828.359. He knows the pulsar by its number, coordinates, basic composition. He didn’t know it at all.

“Kylo,” he says. 

He can feel Kylo’s smile partially pressed against his temple. “I know,” he says, and gives Hux a little squeeze.

The pulsar is a gyroscope of rings, spinning in all directions. The glittering beam of radiation, the liquid slide of solar rays, the strange resonant hum of the magnetic field rising and falling as it turns. There’s so much light and colour, the star is an entire, strange symphony Hux can feel in his bones.

It’s the most beautiful thing Hux has ever seen. 

“Is it like this for you all the time?” he asks, hushed.

“Only through the Force,” Kylo says. “I wanted you to understand, really know what that means. This is what I connect to. All of it. All of us.”

Sometimes, when he’s feeling sentimental, Hux is nearly overcome by the sheer impossibility of Kylo. Not in the general way that all humans are impossible things—such infinitely complex, terrible fragile machines—but more than that. How strange it must be to see ordinary objects and know them in a way so different from everyone else. How unlikely a creature Kylo is, to be able to do these things. How miraculous that he would want to share it.

“One more thing, and then I’ll explain,” Kylo says. He turns their consciousnesses down to Starkiller. And it’s…

The planet is…

“You don’t want to look directly at her for too long,” Kylo says. “But there she is.” 

Hux's mind recoils so thoroughly that he’s snapped back into his body. He half-crawls away from Kylo, dragging himself to his feet, like he might need to run, or fight. He’s sweating but he feels chilled. His entire body is shaking.

“What—” Hux starts to say. But he knows what he saw.

The planet was a scream. It was a wound pried open by dirty hands. More than just the discordant howl of kyber out of harmony. More than the grotesque violation of the machinery sunk into the core, or the pieces being carved away from a living thing. It was the purpose coiled around the planet, a bloody web of ill-intent binding it up. It was something rotten, something filthy. And from the dying body of the planet, a dark stain is creeping out into the galaxy.

Hux designed the Starkiller. There were others, experts of every discipline who refined it, of course, but the initial design was his. The intent he saw wrapped around the planet was his, fed to those under his command, grown by his words. This incorrect thing. This step out of the order of the galaxy. This abomination. He’s the one who brought it into the universe.

Hux doesn’t know how Kylo can stand to be within a lightyear of Starkiller. Hux can barely stomach it, even though he can’t see or feel it anymore. He knows it’s there. It’s too late to unknow it.

A second later Kylo opens his eyes, blinks, and refocuses, turning to Hux. His eyes are glassy and strange. He doesn’t look right. The room stinks of ozone and the fine hairs on the back of Hux’s neck stand up.

“Kylo,” Hux says, with what he thinks is admirable calm. “I need you to start explaining.”

“Could you feel it? The power of a desecrated holy place. A destroyed world to destroy worlds.” Kylo gets to his feet. He’s pouring out heat and energy, like some great weapon being armed. “I can feel that darkness in the Force, and I’m strong enough to connect to it, take it in, harness it.”

Kylo looks sick, he’s pale as a corpse except for a fevered flush in his cheeks, like the rotten thing outside is poisoning him the way Hux feared the Orb of Harrow would. He’s been haunting the observation rooms for days now, every time taking in more of this filth. 

Hux realizes the idea of Kylo as a weapon powering on is terribly apt. Kylo’s just like the Starkiller, devouring suns to convert to power. He’s filling himself with this dark energy, straining at the seams, every atom of his being suffused with it. If he had never shown Hux this, Hux would have told Kylo to do it, to take power where he could. He would have been wrong. This power comes with a price, and Hux doesn’t want to find out what that price is.

“I can see now,” Kylo says. “The dark side brought us together. You don’t need to worry about survival; we’re destined for so much more than that.” 

Kylo lifts a hand and lightning crackles between his fingers. It spreads down his arm slowly until his elbow and then, in a rush, it turns to flame and races over his body until he’s alight with it. He stands there, burning without burning; electric blue, luminous plasma rising off him with an audible buzzing. 

Hux hears Kylo in his mind saying, _I’ll kill Snoke. I’ll kill him and make you Emperor. I’ll lay the galaxy at your feet._

“I’ll build you a palace made of toppled palaces,” Kylo says out loud. His voice buzzes like the corona around him, distorted. “A throne of broken thrones. A crown from the remains of stars. Together, we can build an unstoppable empire of chaos, rising in the dark.”

He clenches his fist and the lightning flows back under his skin. Without the blue glow, Hux can see there’s something wrong with his eyes. Kylo’s lovely brown eyes are yellow, ringed in burnt red. 

Hux backs away until he runs out of room, up against the viewport. He doesn't think he's ever been more afraid in his life than he is now, trapped between Kylo Ren and the Starkiller.

“Ask me for anything,” Kylo says, stalking closer until Hux is truly trapped. “Command me.” Kylo leans in and kisses him; the inside of his mouth tastes like blood and his skin is too hot. 

Hux is frozen in place by his horror but Kylo doesn’t seem to notice, or he doesn’t mind, Hux’s lack of participation in the kiss. His hands are hideously gentle as he pulls Hux down to the cold floor and settles on top of him. 

Hux stares blankly up at the ceiling and doesn't stop Kylo from unfastening his jacket or pushing his shirt up under his armpits. He is going to lie there and let Kylo do whatever he wants, Hux thinks, feeling as though he's still a step outside of his own body. He's going to let Kylo rape him in sight of the planet he violated. It seems oddly appropriate. Hux wanted to live, he didn’t want Kylo to destroy himself. 

Maybe Kylo has found a way to defeat Snoke, but none of that matters if it drives him mad in the process. It can’t be the only way to defeat Snoke. There’s no possible way that this is their only choice.

Some tiny spark of rage rises out of the fear.

“No,” Hux says, pushing at Kylo’s shoulders. “Get off me. Right now, Kylo. Get off.” 

Kylo doesn’t move, so he traps Kylo’s foot under his leg and rolls, weight pushing into Kylo’s knee, grappling him over. Bless Phasma for making him keep up his self-defence, and bless her for including the kind you need when you’re flat on your back and someone is trying to take your trousers off. He hadn’t thought he’d need it, but then, he’s never been that lucky.

Kylo doesn’t fight him, just lies there. His mouth is bleeding again, brilliant red against the corpse-white of his skin. Hux wipes the trail away with his thumb, feeling sad, and sorry, and desperately tired. Then he gets to his feet and yanks his uniform back into place.

"You want a command? Shut this down. I want no part in any of it.” Hux looks down at Kylo whose expression is crumpling. “I don’t want this,” Hux says again. He can’t stay there, with the Starkiller and the man he...with Kylo like this. 

He walks away, but hesitates when he gets to the door and looks back. Kylo has got to his knees and is staring at Hux with his strange yellow eyes. Kylo is at his most beautiful when he’s hurting, Hux thinks. He’s beautiful now; more powerful than Hux can really understand, wounded and confused, and completely insane.

“Armitage,” Kylo says.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Hux says, and leaves.

Hux makes it back to their quarters before the ship goes haywire. He sits on the couch, ignoring his comm, and watches his datapad light up with alerts and frantic messages as the entire ship shakes and shudders around him. Lights are going out, life support systems are failing, weapons are powering up and no one can turn them off, the hyperdrive engines are overloading. Personnel are collapsing, clutching at their heads, weeping, bleeding from burst blood vessels in the nose and eyes. All they can say is that there is screaming.

Hux thinks he might be in shock because he just feels numb. He could order a full evacuation down to Ilum, but he’s not sure transport ships and escape pods would be any safer. Hux sends out a ship-wide message: hold fast. Then he arms himself and goes back to the observation room.

Kylo is still there, on his knees, hunched over. His arms and face are deeply scratched and there’s blood under his fingernails and on his knuckles; blood on the floor and on the transparisteel viewport. It looks like he’s been pulling his own hair in between clawing at himself and breaking his hands.

“Kylo, it’s time to stop,” Hux says dispassionately, hand on his blaster.

Kylo looks up at him. He’s crying, tears cutting through the bloody smears on his face. Hux had thought his eyes might still be yellow, but they’re back to being so brown they’re almost black. The ship stops shaking. The lights come on again. Hux isn't sure what's happening across the rest of _Finalizer_ but he assumes everything else has stabilized.

“I don’t understand,” Kylo says. His voice is a shredded ruin. Hux supposes that’s where the screaming was coming from.

Hux’s boots click on the floor as he walks briskly over to Kylo. “You need to see a medic. You’ve fractured several bones in your hand, and those scratches need bacta. Get up.”

It’s not fair, Hux thinks. Nothing is, but this is injustice on an unprecedented scale; This wretched creature who wants to drown the galaxy in horror, who wants to throw himself into some cosmic sarlacc pit in the name of destiny and drag everyone else down with him, looks so young and so sad.

“Get up,” Hux snaps again, when Kylo doesn’t immediately move.

Kylo dutifully staggers to his feet. He’s unsteady and every time he blinks more tears track down his cheeks. Hux comms the nearest medical bay and tells them to ready for a priority one patient with the highest imaginable safety and secrecy protocols. He puts one arm around Kylo’s waist and takes Kylo’s hand in his, supporting him like he’s a fall risk, and walks him out of the observation room. 

He’s been followed. The corridor is jammed with personnel. They weren’t attacked, they know what to do when that happens; but there’s no protocol for your ship turning against you, and people are scared.

Jenji is there at the front of the crowd, right by the door. She’s in her pyjamas, barefoot, and her toenails are painted, against regulation. Mitaka is with her, also in pyjamas, also barefoot. His toenails are painted the same colour.

“General Hux, let me help you with…” Jenji swallows visibly. “Master Ren?”

Kylo is turned towards Hux, the curtain of his hair partially obscuring his face but not enough to hide it. They’ve both forgotten his helmet, Hux realizes. It’s sitting on the bench in the observation room, and it’s too late now. Cat’s out of the bag, Hux thinks. By the time he gets Kylo to the medical bay the entire ship will have cycled through half a dozen rumours and already begun to collectively decide which ones they believe. No one’s going to remember the tears on Kylo’s face, just the blood, but they will know what he looks like, and that he’s just a man.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Hux says. “I have him.”

Jenji is half Kylo’s size. If he put any weight on her, she’d be knocked flat. It’s a nice offer though.

There’s a disturbance in the crowd and Phasma pushes her way through to the front. Mercifully, she’s not in pyjamas but off-duty regs, and she’s holding her F-11D like she's ready to use it. When she sees Hux, she slings the blaster rifle over her shoulder by the strap.

“I should have known,” she mutters. Phasma turns to address the crowd, raising her voice. “Everyone back to your stations. Crisis averted. Master Ren has defeated the threat to our safety and now General Hux needs you to clear the way so we can get him to medical.”

She gets close enough to ask Hux, “Do you need help?” without being overheard.

“He’s not really injured, he can walk,” Hux says, equally quietly.

“Good. Let’s get this done. One foot in front of the other, Ren,” Phasma says. “And I swear to the gods of my ancestors, if the ship starts to move again, if a light so much as fucking flickers, I’m putting a blaster bolt through your head, do you understand me?”

Kylo doesn’t even look at her. Blood drips off his cheek and soaks into the fabric of his shirt.

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Hux says, and steers Kylo onwards.

With Phasma walking just ahead of them to clear the way, they get to the nearest medical station without incident. The waiting team is ready with surgeons, medical droids, and a crash cart—clearly prepared for something a lot worse than a man who can still get to them under his own power, has all his arms and legs attached, and whose internal organs are still internal. In no way should Kylo rate as a first-level patient, but Hux doesn’t know what else to call it. His injuries aren’t the point, he’s still sick.

Phasma waits until Kylo is up onto the waiting gurney and then eyeballs the medics like they’re troopers performing badly on parade. “Master Ren has been injured defending us from attack,” she says. “I hope you grasp the magnitude of trust the Supreme Leader is putting in you, to be the ones to attend to his apprentice.”

That puts a particular sort of fear into the medical staff, the implication that if they are not competent and discreet, they might not live to see another patient. Hux doesn’t bother to reassure them. Better they’re too nervous to ask questions. It’s not as though Kylo’s injuries are complex, there’s no way even someone terrified out of their minds could screw up applying some bacta and setting his hand. Hux can’t answer questions he doesn’t have the answers to.

Kylo is silent and docile as they take him away to treat his minor injuries. And then Hux and Phasma are left together to wait. Hux stares blindly at the pamphlets about the dangers of catching an STD while on a planet. 

“You just had to fuck him. You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” Phasma says.

“This is not my fault,” Hux hisses, glaring at her. “All of this—” Hux waves his hand at everything around them “—is about Snoke, and the Force, and Kylo’s karking _destiny_.”

“Wonderful,” Phasma says. “I’m going to go play damage control with the troopers. You should send out a message, let everyone know what happened before the rumour mill makes something up. Comm me when you’re ready to tell me what’s really going on.”

Phasma strides off, leaving him to wait by himself. Hux wants to talk to her, but he also doesn’t want her caught in the blast radius. He pulls himself together and uses one of the med bay terminals to send a ship-wide message reassuring everyone that the threat to the ship has been neutralized, thanks to the efforts of Master Ren. Yes, Master Ren has been seen without his helmet. Yes, he is human. Yes, he is in medical. No, it is not serious. Regular operations have resumed. All hail the First Order etc. etc.

He’s barely sent it out before the chief medical officer is coming to talk to him.

"We've treated Master Ren’s hands, the breaks and fractures should be completely healed within the hour, and some topical bacta already took care of his superficial wounds,” the chief medic informs him. “Otherwise, Master Ren is in excellent physical health."

Hux nods curtly. “Very good, that will be all.”

The CMO hesitates a little too long, but then he salutes and hurries away. Hux does not like that pause, or anything it might mean, but he squares his shoulders and carries on. Kylo is in one of the high-security rooms reserved for ranking officers, diplomats, and other people who risk assassination while injured or sick. He’s sitting on a bed, picking at the edge of the casts keeping his hands and several of his fingers immobilized while they set. His face is healed like nothing ever happened. 

Hux can see immediately why the CMO hesitated. A good ten percent of Kylo’s hair is white. Not even grey, fully white. It’s shot all through the black like it’s always been there. Hair is made of keratin, there is no way for a hair follicle to lose its melanin like that. And yet, in the last ten minutes, it did.

“Have you calmed down, or are you going to try wrecking my ship again?” Hux says, walking across the room to stand by the bedside at parade rest. The shocky calm is fading and he doesn’t trust himself not to pitch a fit of his own if he relaxes even a little. 

Kylo looks up at Hux, eyes still bright and wet, intense as ever. “What?”

“You do realize you nearly scuttled the ship?” Hux had figured it was an accident, but he's glad to know for sure that Kylo isn’t insane enough to try and destroy the ship he’s currently on. “You caused ship-wide systems malfunctions. Our engines and weapons were moments away from critical failure and meltdown before I interrupted you. You were giving my crew psychic trauma."

“No...I didn’t…” Kylo shakes his head a little, ashamed. “I didn’t notice.”

I’m not angry,” Hux says, before Kylo can spiral off down the wrong path. “I’m worried for everyone’s safety. Including yours. Do you even know what that sort of power will do to you? Your hair is white. That can’t be normal!”

Kylo pulls a section of his hair in front of his face to see for himself and then lets it drop. “Real power in the dark side can prove disfiguring. I accepted the possibility, but I hoped…I don’t think I could bear it if you found me repulsive. But if it hasn’t happened yet, I’m probably not going to start decaying.”

Hux loses his grip on his wrist, and his temper. “Disfigurement is radically different from decay!” Hux says, one hand in a fist at his side, the other clutching the bed sheets so he doesn’t grab Kylo and throttle him for his stupidity. They don’t have time for that. He’ll have to deal with Kylo blithely deciding to do something that could cause him to _decay_ , and not mentioning it to Hux until after the fact, at some other point. 

When he has control of himself again, Hux unclenches his fists and says, with the utmost calm, “Are you at risk of some cosmetic change, or your skin rotting off your bones? Because those two things are not the same.” 

“Armitage,” Kylo says. “I’m strong enough not to be hurt. I can do it.” He reaches across the blankets, palm up. “I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

Hux takes Kylo’s hand, careful of the cast. “I wasn’t...You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not questioning your strength, or what you want to do with it,” Hux says. “I’m all for it.”

Kylo sighs with relief, fingers twitching like he wants to hold on tighter, but can’t. “Good,” he says. “Okay, good. Before he knows what we’re planning we can—”

“One moment,” Hux says. “As I said, I don’t doubt your strength, but the reason I stopped you in the observation room, and the reason I’m concerned now, is what you think comes after. I’m not sure how much you remember, but you weren’t yourself. You were raving about an empire of chaos and darkness. That’s what you showed me.”

Kylo looks genuinely confused. “Yes…?” he says, slow and drawn out.

Hux takes a deep, cleansing breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. "Why do you think I want that? I’m trying to fix the galaxy, not lay waste to everything, or sow fear and destruction.”

Kylo frowns uncertainly. He lets go of Hux’s hand and shuffles around in the bed so he’s got both legs hanging off the edge of the mattress. His feet easily reach the floor, but he stays sitting, hands in his lap, the white of the casts stark against the black of his clothes. "Since when is chaos and darkness not our aim? We’re building a device to destroy entire systems. What did you think was going to happen?”

Hux opens his mouth to argue that Kylo has clearly been confused by what he’s doing, that firing the Starkiller won't lead to some dystopian nightmare, but will be a war-ending demonstration of power; one volley, one system, would obliterate the Republic and usher in a glorious future. Then he remembers what the Starkiller looked like. It’s monstrous, what he's planning. It would cause chaos. Kylo might be sickened by the dark side, but he’s right about the path they’re on.

Hux is wrong. He’s been wrong this whole time. He’s been…

Hux feels as though the entire universe shifted under him, between one blink and the next, and suddenly nothing is where he left it. 

He remembers learning, very early on, how to craft propaganda to raise troopers and subjugate populations. He’s always been good at it. But he was good at it because he believed what he was saying. There’s a little voice in his head that sounds like his father, sneering at him for being so stupid as to fall for his own rhetoric.

“We were supposed to bring peace,” Hux says, faintly. 

Then, something entirely different but equally awful occurs to him. 

"If you think the goal of the First Order is to wreak havoc on everything around us, then why did you come here in the first place?” Hux demands stepping away with no particular destination in mind. He wants to start pacing. He makes himself stand still.

Kylo’s frown of confusion only intensifies. “For the same reasons I’ve always had. I shouldn’t’ve shown you the Starkiller, I think you’ve blown a fuse.”

“Are you telling me, all this time…” Hux trails off, freshly horrified.

Kylo, from the beginning, from before they even met—and while they were together, when they were having the argument about what temperature their quarters should be for the nth time, or putting up shelves so their loth-cat could climb around on them, or lying together in bed—has thought of them as the villains in some mystical, cosmic tale of destiny. He chose, fully aware of the decision he was making, to be a force of corruption and evil. 

He thinks Hux is knowingly a force of corruption and evil.

Hux isn’t sure what’s worse; finding out that Kylo’s insanity isn’t new, or caused by his recent activities and is, instead, a pillar of his life philosophies, or that Hux himself has unwittingly been part of a system bringing disorder and anarchy. 

“It’s what Snoke wants?” Hux says. “And the only thing different about your plan is who sits on the throne of that empire?”

“It's not like that," Kylo says. "We are who we are born to be. I don’t think you’re bad, I think you’re a source of darkness in the Force. It’s where we’re meant to be.” Kylo takes his hands again. “It’s better not to fight it,” he says. “It only hurts if you fight it.”

Hux wonders how long Kylo fought Snoke and the dark. How long he’s been holding himself back from the golden-eyed monster he’s turning into, and how much of his surrender into madness is Hux’s fault.

“Once you accept it, you’ll see. We’ll be unstoppable.” 

If Kylo had offered him an empire two days ago, Hux would have taken it. He would have done it without a second thought and he would never have known what he was agreeing to.

Hux has always been clever; he can see the choices laid out before him and Kylo, and their potential futures. He's also very, very good at compartmentalization.

“I would look fetching in a crown,” Hux says.

Kylo smiles, the wide, crooked one he only makes when he’s truly happy. “You’re good at that kind of thing,” he says. “The planning. The execution...of plans.”

“I am, at that,” Hux says. 

He thinks about a palace and a throne, an endless parade of troopers at his command, and Kylo at his side—a thing more powerful and corrupted than the Starkiller. He holds onto that image, and that image alone, very carefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Kylo initiates sex and it quickly becomes obvious he is not enjoying what they are doing. Hux stops and rearranges things until Kylo is comfortable, before carrying on. 
> 
> Hux has a lot of anxiety which manifests as low appetite, and feeling like he’s going to be sick. 
> 
> Kylo, poisoned by the dark side, initiates sex with Hux. Hux is too afraid of him to say no, and thinks Kylo is going to rape him. Hux stops Kylo before he can do more than push his shirt up. Hux gets angry about the overall circumstances they are in, but not specifically about Kylo trying to fuck him. Kylo is too busy being crazier than a shithouse rat to realize Hux didn’t want to have sex.
> 
> Kylo has a breakdown "off screen" and self-harms by scratching himself hard enough to draw blood and punching things until he breaks bones in his hands. The description is of the aftermath. 
> 
> NOTES:  
> The idea for the Republican romance novels that Lt. Jenji likes, came from a tumblr post I cannot find but will link to if I do.
> 
> That whole “look at this stuff, isn’t it neat; look at this fucking abomination, isn’t it also neat” scene was originally plotted out as a fluff “hey look at the stars” scene. It...uh...got away from me. I am bad at fluff. I listened to Clint Mansell's Death is the Road to Awe on repeat while writing Kylo's massive fucking break from sanity and subsequent Sith face. 
> 
> Also, if you'd like a more humourous version of what Hux is going through, look no further than [this Mitchell and Webb sketch ](https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU)(tw Nazis, but the buffoonish kind seen in British sketch comedy)


	8. A Tool For Evil

Hux insists that Kylo stay under observation, just for an hour or two. Just to reassure him that Kylo isn’t going to start rotting, or having limbs fall off, or any other surprise side-effect from his plumbing the darkest corners of the dark side. 

“Take a nap,” Hux says. “You were up all night with the Orb of Harrow, you might as well get some sleep now. Let the medic give you a tranq and worry about our plans when you’re rested.”

Kylo declines the drugs and refuses to stay in the med bay, but he does agree to lie down in their rooms and sleep there. Hux takes what he can get.

“I have to go hold Engineering’s hands right now anyway,” Hux says, which is true insofar that he should go and talk to Engineering, or call an officer meeting.

Maybe Kylo’s distracted, or he’s tired, or his habitual mind-reading is barely surface level, but whatever the reason, he accepts Hux’s lie. “Boring,” he says, yawning.

“Part of the job,” Hux says, and pecks him on the mouth. “I’ll be back in an hour or two and I’ll wake you then.”

Hux does not go to talk to Engineering. He doesn’t go to talk to his officers. Instead, he comms Phasma and meets her in her quarters, promising he’ll finally tell her what’s going on, unfortunately for her. If she doesn’t leave this conversation wishing she’d never wondered about Kylo’s trauma unrelated to battle, then Hux will be very surprised indeed.

She’s in her armour now, but she leaves the helmet off, and gestures for him to take a seat. Hux doesn’t take her up on the offer, clasping has hands behind his back in parade rest.

"You asked me what my plans were, my goals."

Phasma looks deeply perplexed. "What does any of that have to with Ren nearly killing us all?"

"Phasma," Hux says. "Please. I think I said something about winning the war and bringing order to the galaxy. What is it you want?"

She sighs. "If you're talking about galactic domination and all that, I don't think about it. But if I had to pick? I don't know. I guess what you said. But that's a long way off. I'm more concerned about our next campaign."

Hux nods and steels his nerve. "I'm going to say something, and if you feel like you need to execute me for it, I'm warning you now that I'm armed and I will fight back.”

Phasma sits down heavily in the chair she’d offered to Hux. “Fuck me with a blaster, you’re such a drama queen. Will you just spit it out already?”

“We need to defect. You and me.” He hopes Kylo’s asleep and not astral projecting or whatever it is he does when he’s checking in telepathically with Hux. If Kylo hears this conversation then he is well and truly fucked.

There is an agonizingly lengthy silence as Phasma’s eyes get wider, and wider, and her mouth drops open.

“I think I’m having a stroke,” she says at last. “Did you say you want to _defect_?”

“It’s all wrong,” Hux says desperately. “We’ve all been lied to. Snoke doesn’t want order, he wants to drag us all into the dark and destroy the galaxy. That’s where he’s leading us. We can’t fix this from the inside.”

Phasma isn’t reaching for her side-arm. She’s staring up at Hux like he’s the one who fired on her. Like she’s gutshot and a little surprised about it. “Oh, stars,” she says. “You’re serious.”

"Snoke is going to have me killed. That's not why I… Snoke hasn't been training Kylo, he's been breaking him into the perfect loyal weapon and Kylo finally realized it and now he's planning a coup." He's telling it all out of order, and can't figure out how to correct himself.

"A what?!" Phasma says.

"But Kylo wants the same thing for the Order. So either way we're karked."

"Stop, stop," Phasma says. "Snoke is leading the First Order to ruin. Ren wants to depose Snoke but also wants to lead the First Order to ruin. So why does the Supreme Leader want you dead? And what does that have to do with Ren trying to crash the ship?" 

"Because I'm sleeping with Kylo, and because the dark side apparently makes people fucking crazy and Kylo’s already half out of his mind and he lost control, keep up."

"Right. And your solution to all of that is for you and me to defect. I'm not following."

“And Kylo, but I'll get to that. As far as I can see it, there are three major possible outcomes here. One: Snoke remains Supreme Leader and he orders my death. Maybe I escape, maybe I don’t. The First Order is a tool for evil. Not ideal, I hope you’ll agree. 

“Two: Kylo decides to kill Snoke. He fails. We’re both executed if we fail to escape. The First Order is a tool for evil. Also not ideal.

“Three: Kylo kills Snoke. The amount of dark power required to defeat his master poisons him beyond help. Whether or not he makes me emperor is irrelevant if I can’t get him to see that destroying the galaxy is insane. Kylo either _makes me_ agree with his grotesque vision for the future, or he takes over as emperor and I disappear and never come back. Even odds if he murders me or chains me to the bed. The First Order, I’m sure you’re sensing a pattern, is a tool for evil.”

Phasma rubs her forehead, frowning. “You’re trusting that I don’t agree with the Supreme Leader’s goals for us.”

Hux swallows convulsively. “Yes.”

“You’re sure you’ve thought of everything?”

“Of course I haven’t!” Hux says. “I’ve only had half a second to figure out a plan, I haven’t slept properly in weeks, and I’m terrified! I’ve probably missed something extremely obvious. But we are running on borrowed time, Phasma. This is the option that keeps me alive long enough to think of something better.”

Phasma is a good strategist, she's a fantastic commander, but this isn't her sort of warfare. She leaves the scheming and politics to Hux. "Why don't you just get Ren to see sense and then stage a coup?" she asks, after some thought.

"He's…It's complicated. Snoke has been in Kylo's head since childhood. He's spent almost thirty years manipulating Kylo and until he's been forced out, I don't think I can get Kylo to listen. He's convinced he agrees with Snoke's vision, but how can he know his own mind? Unfortunately, simply killing Snoke won't work. The way Kylo's been readying to fight him is…" Hux waves an illustrative hand meant to convey the near scuttling of _Finalizer_. "If he keeps going, I'll never get him back. But if we can defeat Snoke without necessitating Kylo’s corruption through the dark side, I think he’ll listen to common sense eventually. I don't believe he’s lost. Not yet. I can’t.”

"You can really pick 'em, huh?" Phasma says. “Sit down, damn it. What are you even telling me this for? Why not just run for it?”

He sits, clenching his fists in his lap to stop them from shaking. “We’ve worked together for a long time. Everyone knows we socialize. If I’m a traitor, how long will it be before you’re executed? I can’t leave you behind.”

Phasma fixes him with a withering stare. “You can say ‘friends.’ It can’t be any harder than saying you’re defecting.”

“Will you come with me?” Hux says.

Phasma puts a hand on his shoulder, as serious as he’s ever seen her. “I will say this once and it will never be repeated in our lifetimes to spare you having to acknowledge your emotions. You are my commander, and one of, if not the brightest strategic mind I know. You’re my friend. I trust you. Your taste in men is utter shit, but I trust you. If you say this is our best option, then it must be true. I won’t stand by and see good, loyal troopers used to fuel a reign of chaos and terror.” She gives his shoulder a squeeze and then lets go again, sitting back. "What’s the plan? Going on the run; a life of crime; throw ourselves on the mercy of the Republic?”

Just like that, Hux feels like maybe he can do this. They might actually get away with it.

“Ally with those simpering fools? In the system the Starkiller is scheduled to destroy? No,” he says. “We’re going to the Resistance. They’re running around without real cause; their only goal is to stop us. But if we go to them. If we can…” Hux swallows, loud in the quiet of Phasma’s quarters. “We can turn them towards our own goals. Kill Snoke and retake the First Order.”

“You think you can turn the Resistance to your agenda? You don’t think in half-measures, that’s for sure.”

“If you’ve got a better plan to stop Snoke or Kylo from turning this galaxy into a wasteland of horrors I’m all ears,” Hux snaps, then says, a little apologetically, “Leia Organa is our best and only shot at finding someone who can help get Snoke out of Kylo’s head.”

Phasma makes a sound too strangled to be a laugh. "Your plan hinges on finding Luke Skywalker?”

Hux worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. The Knights of Ren might rally to Kylo’s side if he calls, but they’re nowhere near strong enough to challenge Snoke. The Jedi temple burned. There’s no one else he can think of. They’re all gone now. All but one. “I hope not,” he says. “I hope I’ll think of something else.”

“Great,” Phasma says, although her tone suggests that it is not great at all. “Well, I guess we’ll bridge that sinkhole when we get to it. Alright, Armitage, let’s go be rebels.”

The actual act of leaving _Finalizer_ is simple. Hux manufactures a mission so vaguely worded that anyone looking into it will assume it’s massively classified. He makes Lieutenant General Arcoum, Acting General Arcoum, and tells him he should only be gone five days, at most.

In full sight of everyone, Phasma loads the entire FN-2100 company onto a transport ship along with boxes of supplies, and boxes that contain Lt. Stabby Jr., Phasma's few personal effects (and the ones the troopers aren’t supposed to have, but do), the go-bags Hux had already packed for Kylo and himself, and Millicent in her carrier. The final crate is seven by three by one and a half imperial feet, and contains the heavily sedated, unconscious body of Kylo Ren.

Hux had worried Kylo would realize what he was doing and stop him, but he’s fast asleep when Hux sticks a needle in his arm and doses him with enough tranquilizers to keep him out for a long time. Hux doesn’t know if anyone else could have done it, or if Kylo would have detected the threat and woken up if approached by a stranger. He doesn’t know if Kylo can use the Force to burn off the tranqs. He doesn’t know a lot of things. 

He does know how to work the system. They take off without question, _Finalizer_ and the Starkiller getting smaller and smaller behind them until they're barely visible. Once they’re out of range of _Finalizer’s_ scanners, Hux disables their tracking beacon, and then they’re gone. They’re on the run.

Hux sits in the cockpit, watching the stars slide past the viewscreen, Phasma in the co-pilot’s chair. If the troopers thought it odd Hux was flying the ship himself, they were too well-trained to say anything in his hearing. 

He's defected from the regime he’s given his entire life to. Hux is too numb to have any real opinion on the matter. He’ll have to reckon with it eventually, but there isn’t time for it now.

"I think I might be sick," Phasma says. She's not prone to dramatics so Hux puts a hand between her shoulders and pushes her down so her head is between her knees.

"Too late to turn back now," he says.

"You have no bedside manner at all," Phasma mutters. "It's not too late. Not until we surrender."

"I'm not going to change my mind. Are you?"

Phasma makes a sorry sounding groan. "No," she says. "Kark it." She sits back up. "Now what?”

“Now we give your company the bad news.”

They go to the personnel carrier portion of the ship and Phasma has all the troopers line up in formation. Hux stands at her side in parade rest, projecting calm authority with everything he has.

“Troopers, remove your helmets,” Phasma says.

Hux turns slightly to watch her, because he’s never seen anyone better at managing stormtroopers and he’s curious as to how she’s going to pull this one off. They’d debated over the idea that the troopers would mutiny and return back to _Finalizer_ once they realized what was happening, but Phasma swore she could get them to follow. She’d been determined to save at least one company. And the FN-2100s, at least, aren’t entirely scared of Kylo. Or maybe Phasma likes them best. He doesn’t know what her selection criteria were.

“Look at each other,” she says and waits until, puzzled, the troopers do as they’re told. “These are familiar faces,” Phasma continues. “They are the faces of those you have worked with, trained with, slept and ate with. You know each other. You are loyal, not just to the First Order, but to each other.”

There’s a bit of guilty shuffling. They’re not supposed to value anything higher than the First Order.

“I know your names,” she says and they gape at her. “Half-moon, Sawback, Freighter, and Jam-jar.”

Hux bites the inside of his cheek so that he doesn’t laugh at their ideas of proper naming conventions. The troopers are doing their best to keep their faces blank, but they’re used to the protection of their helmets and, much like Kylo, they are quite bad at it.

“Ten-four, Longshot, Warbler, Leftbehind, Nebula. I know them all,” Phasma says. “Because you have earned them as I earned mine.”

Several troopers actually gasp. It seems as though a name is the highest honour they can imagine. To have their little insubordination of nicknames elevated by the captain they adore is too much for them. One trooper visibly tears up.

“For this reason I have brought you on the most dangerous mission you will ever undertake. It will require more strength and courage than you have ever brought to bear. But I will be here alongside you.” Phasma pauses for effect, and then says, “The General has discovered corruption in the First Order.”

Now there is outright murmuring. Phasma allows it for a moment before she holds up her hand for silence.

“You know well, it is not war and destruction that we seek, but an everlasting peace and order. You have fought hard, since you were not yet grown, to ensure that goal and now it has been denied us by our own leaders. They seek only glory and power. Our duty is to our mission, no matter where that might take us.” Phasma looks over her stormtroopers, fierce pride in her face and in her voice. “I would trust no others to the task.”

He can feel the passion rising in the troopers. They love her. They might not understand that emotion, but they feel it, the helpless desire to please her, to make her happy, to do as she bids. She is their mother, their god, and their only anchor in the strange, liminal world of duty and obedience they exist in.

“We will go to the Resistance,” she says, implacable. “We will turn ourselves over to them and then we will go back out into the black and bring more of our fellows to join us. The rebels are weak, and easily led. From this new position, we will restore to the First Order what the corrupt have tried to destroy. We will turn the tide back towards peace in the galaxy.”

There is a long, confused silence.

One trooper raises a hand.

“Yes, FN-2187?” Phasma says, with some degree of annoyance. He, tellingly, does not have a nickname. 

“Um,” he says. “Are we… defecting?”

Phasma glowers at him and he quails before her. “Certainly not,” she says, even though that is exactly what they are doing.

Hux comes to stand beside Phasma. “We are making a strategic withdrawal,” he says. “We will do as Captain Phasma has outlined: turn the Resistance to our own purposes, and remove the rot from the First Order. It will not be a simple mission, nor one easily accomplished.” He looks at Phasma and then back at the troopers. “There are no others I would trust to the task,” he echoes. 

FN-2187 has a doubtful look on his face, but the other stormtroopers seem encouraged. A little confused, but willing to go with it.

“Very well,” Hux says. “I leave you to your duties.” He removes himself to the med bay where Kylo sleeps, drugged half to death.

Hux puts his fingers over the pulse in Kylo’s neck. It’s not as strong as he would like it to be.

The med droid Hux brought along (after digging out its tracker and some quick and dirty coding to remove its First Order loyalty programming) hovers anxiously. “Master Ren should not be sedated so heavily,” it says. “His heart struggles. His body fights.”

“Of course it does,” Hux mutters. He cards his fingers through Kylo’s hair, the way Kylo likes. “Stop being difficult," he says. “You’re perfectly safe, I have you. Sleep now.”

As if he has been heard, probably through the kriffing Force, Kylo’s heart rate steadies. He breathes peacefully.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” Hux tells him. “Honestly, I should have shot you out an airlock the day we met. Perfect cock or not,”

The droid makes an embarrassed beeping noise and rolls away.

Finding a rebel base is easy. Hux has a list of suspected outposts, several of which aren’t in easy reach of the Order and have therefore been left alone. Sure enough, the second planet on his list yields results. It’s not a heavily populated base, as far as Hux can tell. What their function is, Hux doesn’t have the opportunity to ascertain because after he hails them and says he’s there to surrender to General Organa, and after he lands the ship, he, Phasma, and all the troopers are immediately arrested and thrown into rooms hastily repurposed as cells.

The rebels take most of Hux’s clothing. Maybe he should have expected this, but he’d been too worried about packing enough food for Millicent, and making sure he didn’t accidentally kill Kylo with the sedatives. He hadn’t thought about what the rebels might do to him, or that they might demonstrate an unwillingness to relay news of his surrender to Organa.

They strip him down to his shorts and his undershirt and toss him in a room with nothing but a bare mattress on the floor. It’s not a warm planet. The temperature can’t be more than just above freezing. He doesn’t know where Phasma is. Or the troopers.

The surrender could have gone a little better. One of the rebels got his ankle sliced by Lt. Stabby Jr. and the rebel shorted it out with a stunner which rather set the tone. The troopers were roughly stripped of their armour and taken away. Phasma was marched off. He could hear Millicent screaming as he was cuffed and forced to leave her behind. Now he's alone, bloodied, and exhausted.

The rebels keep knocking him around. What is he doing? Who sent him? Why is there a Sith lord unconscious in the medical bay of his ship?

Hux is tired. He's tired and in pain and worried. He's worried about Phasma, and the troopers. He's worried the rebels will kill him. He's worried that the rebels are giving Millicent food she isn’t used to, or that they’ve put her down. He’s worried they’ll take Kylo off the sedative drip. If Kylo wakes up, he’ll tear the walls down around them. No one will make it out alive.

He wipes his bloody nose with the back of his cold hand. They keep asking what his plans are. He keeps telling them he'll only speak to Organa. They keep knocking him around.

Hux has a terrible headache and he can’t stop shaking. He’s hungry but nauseous, he’s exhausted but he can’t sleep. It’s been days since his last dose of stims and he’s pretty sure this is withdrawal. Kylo and Phasma were right, he should have quit taking them months ago.

Hux lies down on the bare mattress, curled up as small as he can get to try and preserve some body heat. The room is freezing. Hux tucks his hands between his thighs to try and warm them up. It doesn’t help.

He finally manages to drop into a light doze and then someone bangs on the door, startling him awake.

They do it again the next time he manages to drift off.

They keep doing it.

He doesn’t know exactly how many days pass before the door to his cell opens and Leia Organa is there. For a second, he thinks she might be a hallucination. He really is not coping with the withdrawal as well as he might have wished.

She's a small woman, not quite five Imperial feet tall, but she carries herself with a steely grace he envies. She has the bearing she ought to; that of a princess and a general both. Kylo has told Hux more than once that he's about as Force-sensitive as a blast door but she has a presence even Hux can feel.

Hux clambers unsteadily to his feet, wondering if he ought to salute or bow. In the end, he has to brace himself on the wall for fear he’s going to fall over, so he doesn't do either. Organa looks him up and down, and he hates to think how pitiful he must appear to her. He’s unwashed, unshaven, unsteady, and decidedly unimpressive. Some strategist, he thinks bitterly.

“Where are his clothes?” she demands, turning away from him. “How long has he been like this?”

There’s a guilty sort of shuffling out in the corridor.

Organa sends her men out to fetch clothing for him. She doesn’t apologize, he wouldn’t either, but she waits until he’s dressed and has shoes on, before she says: "I am told you wish to defect and that you would only surrender to me, personally."

It’s insane, now that he’s warmer, he’s shivering. He can’t stop shaking and he has to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. "My name is Armitage Hux, General of the First Order. With me are one hundred and fifty stormtroopers, Captain Phasma, and one loth-cat.” Hux manages to stop himself before he mentions Lt. Stabby Jr. “We also brought the Master of the Knights of Ren. He didn’t come by choice, which is why I hope he's still in your medical facilities—"

Organa’s composure cracks right down the middle. She turns away for a moment, holding in some huge emotion, too much to be borne. It doesn’t take more than a breath or two before she recovers. 

"Gentlemen," she says to the rebels accompanying her. "General Hux and I will be going to medical."

Hux only then recalls she had a Force-sensitive son. If her son was at the Jedi temple at the same time as Kylo and she blames Kylo for his death… Hux didn’t plan for Organa having personal reasons to want revenge. It's going to get complicated if he has to stop her from having Kylo executed right out of the gate. 

He's pushed roughly down the halls after Organa until she reprimands his captors for their conduct. What a cock up this turned out to be. He's been following a madman in the hopes of order and Organa's leading a pack of feral beasts. None of this is right.

They reach the med bay where Kylo lies, still hooked up to a intravenous sedative. Hux swallows down his desire to hurl himself across the room to make sure Kylo’s heart is still beating steadily, and that he’s been taken care of. He doubts it. Kylo’s patchy beard is coming in and he looks thinner. Haven’t they been giving him a nutritional drip?

Hux realizes he has, in fact, taken several steps towards Kylo. He makes himself stop. There’s no advantage to the rebels knowing he and Kylo can be used as leverage against one another.

"General," Hux says warily. 

Organa isn't listening. She marches straight across the room and takes one of Kylo's hands in hers. She cups his cheek with the other, and bends at the waist so she can press a kiss to his forehead.

“My boy,” she says. “My poor, lost boy.”

Hux is exhausted and it takes him a second to put two and two together. When he does, he can’t help but blurt out, horrified, “Kylo Ren is your _son_?” 

“Ben Solo is my son,” Organa snaps, straightening, still holding Kylo’s limp hand. "Not that creature you've turned him into."

Hux needs to sit down. Snoke got his hooks into the child of Leia Organa. Nephew of the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker. Grandson of Darth Vader, which rather explains a few things. Kylo is a kriffing Skywalker of all the accursed families. 

Oh. Kark it. Hux fucked Leia Organa's son.

Organa smooths her thumb over the curve of Kylo’s ear with great tenderness. “We need ysalamiri and a nutrient drip,” she says to her men. “Not in that order.”

Hux is so used to Kylo’s familiar skimming of his surface thoughts and Snoke's excruciating probing that he's surprised to realize she's in his head; a subtle, gentle touch. He thinks resolutely of the goal before him. He thinks of durasteel, blast doors, and vaults.

“I got quite enough of that from Snoke,” Hux says, so she knows he knows. 

She withdraws, without admitting to anything. Didn’t train in it, his arse. 

Hux continues, "Snoke is going to lay waste to the galaxy and take all of us with him. That's why I'm here. You and I might disagree on the best way for the galaxy to be governed, General, but neither of us want ruin, chaos, and all that other dark side insanity. Snoke needs to be stopped before it's too late.

“I can tell you about current operations, the stormtrooper program, and the officers. I can tell you literally everything about the machine the First Order is building which will be capable of destroying entire systems in one volley. I'll tell you everything I know about Snoke. Whatever you need to stop him. 

“In return, I am asking for asylum for those who have willingly defected with me. And for this man,” he gestures at Kylo, “who, admittedly, has a more complicated relationship with the Rebellion than I knew about. At the very least, he didn’t kill the children at the Jedi temple.”

Organa is unmoved. "Is that so?" she says, as if that's the detail Hux would bother to lie about. But she’s still holding Kyo’s hand, still staring down at him like she doesn’t really believe he’s there. This isn’t an advantage Hux thought he’d have, but he’s willing to lean into it as hard as he has to.

“Kylo didn’t kill the padawans, or whatever Jedi cadets are called,” Hux says. “My credits are on Snoke and the First Order. I suppose we’ll never know for certain, but Kylo isn't guilty of that crime; unless you believe he can summon an air strike from the sky with his witchery, of course."

“His name is Ben,” Organa says. She’s not _listening_.

A small, slightly hysterical part of Hux’s brain is stuck on the fact that Kylo’s birth name is Ben. That Kylo wasn’t claiming Darth Vader’s legacy off-hand, but because he’s descended from the man. His mother was a princess, his grandmother was a queen, and Hux has no idea if that makes Kylo royalty or not. It’s very likely Hux would recognize the names of some of those courtesy relatives Kylo talked about as names of rebellion leaders and New Republic dignitaries. 

Hux really wants to sit on the floor and take a minute to process and realign everything he knows. His head is killing him. He wants the opportunity to check Kylo’s pulse, or put his hand on his chest and feel him breathe. 

He stays where he is and says, “Your word that _Ben_ , and Phasma, and the troopers will be granted sanctuary as defectors, and I’ll give you everything I know.”

Organa cocks her head in a way that’s eerily similar to Kylo. “What about you?” she says.

“I'm a high-ranking officer with valuable intelligence. I'm sure you have protocol for that," Hux says.

Organa considers him. Now that he knows, he can see how Kylo favours her; something in her eyes and the curve of her jaw perhaps. Or maybe it's just that the expression on her face is so familiar; deadly serious and very intense.

Hux squares his shoulders and waits for her judgement. He can't say for sure what she sees: an enemy, an opportunity, a source of information, a raggedy prisoner, the reason her apostate son returned home, a desperate man trying not to beg for mercy. 

“If Kylo—If Ben and I could have killed Snoke ourselves don't you think we would have done it?" Hux swallows his pride. "Help me, General Organa, you're the only option I’ve got."

For some reason that makes her smile. Fucking lunatic Skywalkers and their inexplicable moods.

“Very well, General Hux of the First Order,” Organa says. “I accept your surrender.”

The End.  
(of part one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS  
> Kylo is drugged into unconsciousness by Hux, absolutely without his consent.
> 
> Rebels put Hux in a cold cell with little clothing. The narration says he’s been knocked around by them but it isn’t shown in any detail apart from mention of a bloody nose. He’s also woken up repeatedly as he tries to sleep, which is torture.
> 
> Additionally, while imprisoned by rebels, Hux is suffering through stimulant withdrawal but again there's no real detail.
> 
> Hux worries that Millicent might be killed. (Spoilers but also I’m not that kind of author: She’s fine and will always be fine.)
> 
> NOTES:  
> Hahaha, this was supposed to be a short one-shot. Oops. Thanks for joining me on this wild ride. For something I initially had zero interest in, boy I sure did write a goddamn novel.
> 
> Part two coming after the Kylux BB is done. In which everyone must answer the question: what are you willing to sacrifice to uphold your beliefs?


End file.
